Involved
by eight.dimensions
Summary: In order to kill Kir Facaz, Reno needed Cloud's help. But was that really such a good idea? 'Cause he's actually starting to develop feelings for that guy. Wait... what happened to girls?
1. Hero

**DISCLAIMER: the entire first scene with zack is taken from SQEX. i admitted it, happy now?**

**WARNINGS: yaoi, boy's love, violence, swearing, lemon in future chapters**

**PAIRINGS: renocloud, zackcloud, whatever else i spontaneously decide to add later**

**happy reading.**

This was it. This was the end of him. The end of one of the greatest SOLDIERs in history. But at least… at least it was all for _him_.

Zack lay eagle-spread with his Buster Sword in his hand on the cliff over the mesmerizing scene of Midgar in the distance. He was so close. Why did Shinra have to get in his way? Gunshot wounds riddled his chest and swirls of red mixed with the clear rain water. He could barely breathe, let alone move his head just inches to see if _he _was alright, if Cloud was still alright.

Cloud twitched from the steady downpour of rain on his numb body. He jerked his arm over to his right and dragged himself out from behind the rock where Zack had hid him. And there Zack was, lying there on the ridge. It was almost as if he was just doing as he always was. Slacking off on the job. Dozing off with his sword in his hand, as if for one moment in their lives they weren't at risk of being ambushed by Shinra troopers.

Cloud gripped the muddy grass desperately crawling over to his seemingly lifeless friend. He took one look at Zack's condition and had to choke back tears. "Zack…"

Zack looked into Cloud's eyes with a meaningful smile on his face, "For the… both of us."

"Both of us?"

Zack reached up to touch Cloud's soft golden hair and slowly brought his face closer to his own. Cloud's blank and confused eyes merely stared at him as Zack pressed his lips against the blonde's. Zack held him there for a moment before releasing him, "Live. You'll be… my living legacy."

Cloud sat up straight again, his hair imbrued with Zack's blood.

"My honor, my dreams…" Zack pushed the Buster Sword into Cloud's hands. "They're yours now." Right at that moment, Zack realized that this was the right thing to do. Letting Cloud go. He'd be okay, Zack was sure of it. He took one last look at the blonde's gentle face, those eyes as blue as the oceans, and his beautiful hair that was dripping with rain, and closed his eyes.

"I'm your… living legacy…" Cloud repeated softly, a look of confusion and yet desperation on his face. Somehow the scene before him didn't seem real. He just couldn't comprehend the idea that he was actually gone. Cloud let out a agonizing yell into the rain filled sky as memories of Zack flashed before his eyes against the clouds.

"_Embrace your dreams_."

It seemed so short now.

"_If you want to be a hero…_"

Zack couldn't be dead.

_"You need to have dreams._"

This couldn't be the end.

"Thank you… I won't forget." Cloud stood up with the sword in his hands, heavy with remorse. His eyes took in all of Zack for the final time. His long raven hair that stuck up in whimsical spikes not unlike his own. His violet, Mako-tinted eyes hidden by closed eyelids hovering in between death. "Good night…" Cloud whispered as he turned away from the 1st class SOLDIER, "Zack."

The SOLDIER gazed into the rain-filled sky, his eyes flickering from the droplets and his soft smile fading crooked on his face. Was this the right was to die? "_Hey._" Everything was going to be alright, right? "_Would you say I became a hero_?"

* * *

"I slack off too much, eh? You gonna stick me on probation? Well, that ain't gonna stop me!" The Turk flicked the long ponytail of red hair over his shoulder, "Not a chance, yo!"

Reno adjusted the flashlight he had set between his head and his right shoulder, and continued typing on the laptop in the dark. "The Turks haven't had a job in ages anyway. What's a little slackin' off gonna hurt? God dammit, Rude. Why didn't you watch the left hallway? If you hadn't dozed off, I would have gotten away with it too!" He typed in the painstakingly long password he memorized a few hours earlier under his Rufus's table with his laptop and clicked LOG IN. After a few moments in suspense, the red-head punched his fist into the air victoriously, "_Yes_! Now, let's see what secrets you aren't letting they rest of us Turks in on, Rufus."

"_Load him onto the truck. We need to dose him at once if we are to use him in the future._"

"Hey, hey, hey. What do we have here?" Reno hacked into an encrypted folder and scanned through the files. "Who are these guys? A genetically enhanced human… Ain't Hojo dead? What kind of mad scientist is it this time?"

"_Hold him down and don't let go._"

"_Yes, sir. But are you sure we should be doing this—_"

"_Fool! If we succeed, this man will be even more lethal than Sephiroth himself!_"

Reno's eyes widened as he finished reading all the files, "Wutai Continent, eh? What a mission. With this, I'll show that pompous idiot that Reno ain't just a stupid slacker, yo! Rufus, you underestimated me."

"_I'm beginning the process_."

"_But he's still conscious_!"

"_Just hold him down_."

Reno snapped the laptop shut, stood up, and brushed the dust off his carelessly thrown on Turk uniform. He adjusted his goggles with one hand and smirked to himself, "But first… I'm going to need a little help for this one."

* * *

Cloud's eyes snapped open at the sound of the phone at his bedside. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, trying to wipe away the image of his dead friend from his closed eyelids. What bad memories. After shaking his head fiercely to rid himself of the depressing thoughts, he answered the phone in a low voice, "Hello, Strife Delivery Service. You name it, we deliver-"

"Cut the crap, blondie! I got a job for you, yo!"

Cloud slammed the phone back down on the receiver. It was Reno. The last time he called for a job, Bahamut SIN nearly obliterated Edge. He was not going to accept it this time, even if Rufus got down on his knees and begged.

The phone rang again. Annoyed, Cloud picked up the phone and said harshly, "What?"

"What, sorry?"

It was a customer. How embarrassing. "Oh, sorry. Strife Delivery Service." He quickly grabbed a paper and pen from the drawer and started writing, "Uh huh. Yes, yes I got it. I'll have it delivered by this afternoon. Around three, yes. Thank you. You're welcome."

Cloud put the phone down again looking at the address on the paper. That was odd. Reno didn't call again. He usually wouldn't stop bothering him for hours until he agreed.

Cloud wandered blindly towards the mirror and then looked up at his reflection. He gazed into his own Mako tinted eyes tiredly. He hadn't thought of Zack's death for years now, so why would the dream come and haunt him again? Why now?

"Cloud? Cloud!" Tifa's voice echoed up the stairs interrupting his thoughts. Dismissing his mind's questions, Cloud made his way down the stairs and into the bar. Tifa looked up from wiping glasses with a wet towel. "Someone's here for you, Cloud!"

The red-haired Turk sitting at the bar raised his glass of beer in greeting, "Yo! I gotta job for you!"

Cloud swiveled on his feet and walked straight back up the stairs. "You have got to be kidding me," He muttered when Reno ran up after him.

"You takin' in a word I say? Listen to me, yo!"

Cloud rolled his eyes and kept walking up the stairs ignoring Reno with little effort. How annoying.

Reno skimmed a hand through his hair, "Well, if you aren't gonna listen to me at all…" He took a deep breath and began yelling, "Cloud Strife is a spiky headed dolt! He's a wuss! Cloud lost to me twenty-seven times, yo! He's so weak that Sephiroth beat him with his eyes closed! And his sword doesn't even begin to reflect his puny real one-"

Cloud spun around and punched Reno square in the face. "Shut up." And with that, he slammed the door shutting himself in his room.

"Owww," Reno groaned with his hand over his nose. Well, he wasn't going to let this guy get the better of him. Not this easily. "Yo, Cloud!" He banged his fist on the door. "I'm not even kidding about this job, yo! You're gonna wanna take this!"

Silence.

Reno sighed and pulled out his Electro-Mag Rod from a holster on his belt, "Hey, this is a nice door, so I didn't wanna do this, but get yo' blonde ass out of there—" He swung his arm back and…!

Cloud opened the door again causing Reno to fall flat on his face. "I need to make a delivery," He said in a low voice as he walked towards the stairs again carefully making sure to step on Reno along the way.

"Dammit, Cloud!" Reno jumped up again, "Don't think I ain't gonna come with you, yo!"

With a quick word to Tifa about where he was going, Cloud stepped out the door and picked up the package from the storage room. He walked over to the street and revved up the engine for his motorbike. "Better ride off before Reno takes this chance to stalk me again," He thought as he kicked the kickstand up and started accelerating away.

"Yo, Cloud! Get back here! It's important!" Reno started sprinting after the motorbike which was steadily increasing speed with his target on its back. "Rrg." Reno bent down and launched himself into the air, landing smoothly on the motorbike with his back against Cloud's. "Seriously, yo. You gotta listen to me on this one," Reno said as he tapped Cloud's shoulder with his stun baton, "If you don't take this job, it's really gonna affect you and Tifa's lives—WAGHH!"

Reno instinctively reached behind him with his free hand to grab Cloud's waist as he swerved the motorbike around a corner sharply to throw Reno off. Cloud looked down and blushed, "Idiot! Watch where you're grabbing!" He swung his leg over the seat and roundhouse kicked Reno right off the back.

Reno skidded to a stop violently on the street. "Ughh…" Coughing in the dust, he picked up his baton and slowly got up. Ultimate failure. This guy was feisty. He cupped both his hands around his mouth and yelled at Cloud's retreating figure, "They're planning to destroy Edge!"

"What?" Cloud hesitated at these words. This didn't bode well. "Maybe I should find out what's going on," He thought biting his lip. Cloud hit the brakes abruptly and turned around so suddenly that he almost hit the nearby buildings. He slowed to a stop next to Reno, "Get on and tell me what your mission is."

Reno smirked, "Now, that's more like it, yo!" He hopped on with his back facing Cloud again. "No more sharp turns or kicking me off, yo. Or I might just grab something again."

Cloud accelerated to his original speed once more, hoping Reno didn't see his cheeks heat up to a light shade of pink. "Just talk."

Reno stuck his retractable stun baton into his holster and crossed his legs on the seat. "Well, if I didn't tell you before…"

"You didn't," Cloud muttered. If he could recall, Reno spent half the time today just telling Cloud to listen to him. Although, that was partly his fault too.

"…I got stuck on probation because I was going to pull a prank on Tseng and that idiot Rude fell asleep on watch," Reno continued, getting annoyed just thinking about it again. "We haven't been getting any jobs lately, so I've been slacking off and shit, yo."

Cloud pulled his goggles over his eyes as they increased speed on the highway. "Just get to the point, Reno."

"Alright, alright, cheeky," Reno rolled his eyes, "I hacked into the Turks' main system to get a mission, so I can get off probation. Since, thanks to my shitty luck, we usually get the good jobs when I'm not there." As Cloud started weaving in and out of the cars on the road, Reno subconsciously put his arms around Cloud's waist again to keep his balance. "Well, in a nutshell, another psychotically ambitious scientist has—"

Cloud flinched, "Reno."

"Yo."

"Get your arms off my waist."

Noticing this himself, he immediately withdrew his arms and merely shrugged, "Oh, sorry." He gripped the seat instead, even though it was less supporting. "Stop driving so fucking recklessly then! I'm gonna fall off!"

"Why do you sit like that then?" Cloud muttered as he drove off the highway, slowing down in the process. "It's like you're asking to be thrown off."

"Shut up, yo!" Reno yelled over the wind rushing by. "Like hell I'm gonna sit with my chest against another guy's back! You gotta be shitting me if you think any guy's gonna enjoy that."

"He's got a point," Cloud grudgingly admitted to himself under his breath.

"Anyway," Reno continued, "It's not clear whether the experiments are related to Hojo or not, but I'm willing to bet that he at least played a significant part in the initial planning of the tests. They were trying to make a Mako-enhanced human, yo."

Cloud raised an eyebrow at the familiar description. "Isn't that exactly what they did to make—"

"SOLIDERs? Yeah," Reno finished with a half-hearted nod, "But the concentration of Mako in the experiment's bloodstream would be far greater than mere Shinra SOLDIERs. It's pretty confidential in itself, but the Turks got some recent intel that the experiment was in its final stages... and that it would have at least as much destructive power as Sephiroth himself. And you gotta admit, yo, Jenova cells or not, that shit is pretty fucking scary."

Sephiroth. Cloud shivered at the name. He tried to bring a calamity to destroy the entire planet only a few years earlier. Sephiroth was crazy, not to mention the fact that he stabbed Cloud more times than he could even count. The delivery boy slowed to a stop in front of a weapons shop and slipped off his goggles. "Wait here," He said to Reno as he got off the bike with the package in his hands.

Reno paused for a moment, as if pondering for a moment whether he should actually listen to the blonde. Evidently, the thought process took no more than literally a moment because the Turk merely shrugged and followed Cloud into the shop.

Upon hearing the redhead's footsteps behind him, Cloud rolled his eyes and asked, "Alright, well, do you have any information about the head scientist himself, or at least the location of the lab?"

"That's the problem, yo," Reno sighed, putting his hands behind his head leisurely, "Apart from rumors that the lab is situated on the Wutai Continent, none of the Turks' resources have any information on the lab, _or_ the head scientist. Yo, I know it's pretty much a shot in the dark here, but with the rumors that are spreading Underground, it's a safe bet that Edge is among the majors cities these scientists are targeting."

"So, you basically have no information whatsoever."

"Well, if you put it that way, yo..." Reno paused to wait for the delivery boy to hand the package to the shopkeeper and have him sign the necessary forms. After giving the man a short nod in thanks, Cloud began walking out of the shop and towards his bike again, clearly ignoring the red-haired Turk. "Hey, I know the name of the experiment though!" Reno called out to Cloud's back.

Slowing mid-step, Cloud turned around to look at the other man.

"His name is Kir Facaz. Are you in or out, yo?"

* * *

**pretty short first chapter, but what can i do.**

**EDIT: **** this entire fic is in the process of being edited. i'm too much of a moron to put up the entire edited version up at once, so please put up with my stupidity in that there are going to be a point where chapters will not necessarily match up and my writing style is going to look like it just had a complete about face. i'm sorry?**


	2. Attracted

**and the adventure begins...**

After Reno had gone back to Healin Lodge for the night, Cloud was left to ponder whether he was really going to take a Turk job again. Whether he was going to risk his life for Gaia again.

Letting out a long, drawn out sigh, Cloud collapsed on his bed and stared unblinkingly at the white ceiling of his room in the dark, his mako-tinted eyes taking in every inch of the minute details above him. It wasn't the first time he had left home, wondering if he'd ever come back to see the familiar scenes he had left behind. But back then he never really had a home. Nibelheim was almost a childhood prison for him. Somewhere he escaped out of to prove himself to the accusing townsmen, to Tifa. Once he came to Midgar it was no different. He was a wandering mercenary, only with AVALANCHE for as long as the job would pay him.

That was when it all changed. He had friends. Friends who risked life and limb on the journey with him. And here in Edge he finally had a home and a family. Marlene. Denzel. Tifa. Was it selfish of him to want to finally stay with the family he longed for for so many years? Or selfish to take the risk of losing it all forever?

"Dilly dally, shilly shally," A voice sighed from the open door in front of him.

Cloud sat up in his bed a little and upon seeing Tifa standing in the doorway, he collapsed back onto his bed. Tifa smiled at his succinct recognition and slowly walked into his room, sitting on the edge of his bed. "Thinking of running away again?" She asked, turning halfway on the bed to look at the languid blonde.

"I…" Cloud couldn't bring himself to look back into those dark brown eyes urging him to cast away his doubts. Maybe it was because this time he didn't know if Tifa even wanted him to go. Geostigma was over. The remnants were gone. From her perspective, he didn't need to fight anymore. "I don't know," Cloud finished in a low voice.

Tifa smiled sadly and turned away from the blonde, looking at the hardwood floor instead of at Cloud. "It's important, isn't it? Reno acted like it was pretty urgent, chasing after you like that," She laughed a little at the recent memory and then sighed, letting the night air envelop the room before saying cheerfully, "You better go then!"

Cloud looked at her in mild surprise. "Huh?" And here he was, thinking she was going to beg him to stay or something. Seriously, who was going to make those insanely fast Express Deliveries when he was gone?

Tifa hopped off the bed and spun around, smiling at him. "You thought I was going to ask you to stay behind, didn't you?" She grinned, smacking him across the shoulder playfully. "Dilly dally, shilly shally! When have I ever backed off from pushing you to face your destiny?" She punched her fist into her palm in almost a gesture of triumph. "I'm Tifa Lockheart, remember? We'll be fine when you're gone! Don't worry!"

Cloud sat up on his bed slowly and swung his legs over the side. "But…" He started, looking up at her concernedly.

"Nuh uh!" Tifa placed a finger on his lips and bent down to his eye level, "None of that, Cloud Strife! You gotta save the planet again, right?" She grinned one last time before walking towards the door, but stopped with one foot in the hallway. "Come back soon, 'kay?"

"Yeah…" Cloud closed his eyes with a sigh, lying back down on his bed, "I will."

* * *

"Morning, sunshine. Let's get goin', yo," Reno called out from his place by the bar as he watched Cloud slowly clunk down the stairs and into 7th Heaven. From the looks of it, the delivery boy didn't seem to get much sleep the night before. Honestly, Reno couldn't blame him. He was dragging the savior of Gaia back into battle for the third time in the short twenty-five years of his life and forcing him to pick up his sword and take the lives of the world onto his shoulders again. But he had no choice. Cloud was the only guy who could beat Sephiroth, so he was _definitely _the only guy in Gaia that could beat Kir Facaz. Even so, the red-head almost had to hold back a wince as he saw the tired face of the young man before him, mature beyond his ages. If Reno wasn't the most immoral Turk there was, he probably would have felt a jab of guilt every time he looked at the other man.

"We'll be waiting for you, Cloud," Tifa said from behind the bar counter, a meaningful smile on her face, "Don't get in too much trouble."

Cloud subconsciously touched the red ribbon on his left arm and nodded, letting his childhood friend's words sink into his heart and the musky smell of the bar he called his home be left imprinted in his mind. "I'll be home soon," He said in a low voice as he closed the door softly, watching the open sign swing back and forth for a few moments before turning towards his motorbike.

"Get on, yo," Reno nodded towards the front of the bike, already sitting backwards on the seat - as usual, "It's not like Kir Facaz is gonna wait for us to get outta here before he annihilates everything in his path." If they didn't get to the Wutai Continent before long, that casually stated tease would soon become more than just a joke.

"Yeah." Cloud climbed onto the bike and started the engine. After taking one last glance behind him at 7th Heaven, he sped off into the distance, sliding his goggles over his cerulean eyes as he road away at top speed. First it was Sephiroth and now this Kir Facaz calamity. But killing-machine or not, he wasn't going to let this experiment destroy his home, or his family. He was through with running away.

Reno pointed in general southward direction over Cloud's shoulder, "We're heading to Junon, yo. We can board a ship from there to the Western Continent."

"Yeah," Cloud said again, making no effort to hide his succinctness. But something suddenly occurred to him that threw all thoughts of keeping his mouth shut to think out the window. "Reno."

"Yo," The Turk replied, twirling his baton between his fingers, the danger of dropping it from a motorbike moving over a hundred miles per hour only making the usual habit all the more fun.

"I was just wondering," Cloud mused as he looked up through his goggles thoughtfully, "You're a helicopter pilot, right?"

Reno scoffed and tapped the blonde's head with his E.M.R. as if insulted. "No shit, I'm the best, yo!" He yelled proudly over the raging sound of the engine.

"Then why aren't we flying one of the Turks' copters?" Cloud demanded irritably.

"Uhh," Reno stammered, scratching the back of his head guiltily, "Well, you know how I took up this mission on my own accord, right? If Rufus ever found out I hacked into the main system with his password, he'd kill me, yo. There _are_ some things he keeps from us Turks after all."

"So--"

"So," Reno interjected before Cloud could throw another disbelieving comment at him, "I can't use any equipment that belongs to us, Turks, yo. That's like _blatantly_ pronouncing that I ran off to do a mission with AVALANCHE. For all they know, I'm just slacking off, or brooding over the fact that I'm on probation because of Tseng."

Either Reno was genuinely scared of Rufus's wrath enough to resist stealing a Turk copter, or the red-head had clearly decided not to plan out this mission very well. The fact that the Turk was cynical and sadistic enough to just take on the mission and drag Cloud to the depths of despair with him just for the hell of it was also another possibility. Cloud suppressed a loud groan to mutter in a low voice instead, "What an idiot."

"Yo, I heard that, Spiky!"

The delivery boy was about to kick Reno off the bike again just out of sheer annoyance, but paused as he glanced up at the beautiful mountain scenery in the distance. He smirked to himself, "I'm just saying that it's more trouble for you is all."

"What?"

Cloud's custom-made motorbike was perfectly capable of going through rocky ravines, but Reno without a doubt had a little trouble staying on. Perhaps more than a _little_ trouble. As Cloud's bike raced through the steep mountain range, the Turk could only grab the seat and hold on for dear life. If his hands even so much as slipped and he fell off, there was little doubt that Cloud would leave him behind and zoom off into the distance. The guy was just a jerk like that sometimes.

"Yo, Cloud! Fucking slow down, god dammit!" Reno yelled, his voice fluctuating amusingly as Cloud weaved in and out of the myriad of boulders and drove straight across the smaller rocks.

Cloud glanced at the sun slowly setting in the blood red sky and skidded his bike to a stop, promptly sending Reno flying off the back and into the mountain side. "It's getting dark. We should camp out here."

Apparently face-planting into the grass in the shade of the mountains, Reno could only respond with a "BHUCK YOH, COWHD!"

* * *

Cloud blew on the fire that he had been attempting to make despite the wind billowing through the darkness. It was a surprisingly disappointing practice. Every single time he emerged seemingly victorious with a blazing flame, the wind snuffed it out.

Reno watched Cloud blow on the - now - ashes for nearly an hour before finally nudging him with his shoe, "Give it up, yo. We can live without a fire."

Cloud turned to the long-haired mercenary's silhouette in disbelief. Was he crazy? It was beyond freezing on this mountain and they were going to risk spending the night without a fire? This may not be one of Reno's more ludicrous stunts, but it was definitely mental.

Reno reached his hand over towards the motorcycle and grabbed something, throwing it on to the ground by the fire. It glowed nearly as bright as a flame would, but shone in multiple colors.

Cloud scrutinized the leather sack on the floor and widened his eyes. "My materia bag! We can't just leave this here all night. What if bandits sneak up while we're asleep and pull a Yuffie on us?" It tired Cloud out just _thinking _about the trouble he and his friends had to go to in order to get their materia back from the thieving little ninja.

Reno shrugged, "These mountains are completely isolated, yo. No one but an idiot like you would drive their motorbike up these steep sides. Your materia is safe and sound." He gesticulated with a lazy hand at the small pouch of glowing materia, "And you wanted light, right? Perfect solution."

Cloud looked at Reno with an odd expression of mixed feelings on his face. He appreciated how Reno cared for what he wanted, but this wasn't exactly what he _wanted_ the fire for.

Reno squinted at Cloud, scrutinizing him carefully, "Yo, what're you sitting there with a dumb look on your face for? Get over here and go to sleep, yo."

What're you, my mother? Cloud thought, watching Reno yawn loudly as he lay on the ground with his hands as a cushion behind his head. The blonde sighed and abandoned his dying fire to go sit next to his only companion on these cold, lonely mountains. It didn't matter if he was freezing anymore. He needed to rest up for the next day of travel.

Easier said than done. Hours past and Cloud still didn't get a wink of sleep. The mountain wind seemed to blow right through his clothes and the fact that they had no - nor any form of - blankets whatsoever didn't exactly help either. All he could think about was how much he'd love to be in Costa Del Sol right now. So far, this journey really sucked.

Reno opened one eye to peer over at his still wide-awake partner, "I don't think you know this, but your shivering is causing a minor earthquake in this general area of the Eastern Continent, yo."

Cloud hugged his knees tighter to his chest and managed to reply through chattering teeth, "W-wha-what?"

Reno pushed himself up into a sitting position, "Are you cold?" He leaned over, looking at Cloud's face closely.

The shivering blonde buried his numb face into his knees and snorted to himself. "W-what a profound deduction," He managed to get out sarcastically, despite his shivering - which was actually starting to resemble more the likes of a seizure.

"Well, at least you still have enough heat in you to be making wisecrack at me, Spiky." Reno paused for a moment, watching the blonde huddle by himself in the cold wind. From the training Tseng had the Turks go through, a little chilly mountain air was among the least painful of his past sufferings. Though, apparently, the army hadn't inflicted nearly enough torture on their soldiers to make _Cloud_ immune to it. "You have got to be fucking kidding me, yo," Reno eventually rolled his eyes sighing, "Get over here, blondie." He put his arm around Cloud's shoulders and pulled him over so his head was resting on the Turk's shoulder.

Cloud immediately pushed Reno away, looking at him oddly, "What are you doing?"

Reno pulled Cloud towards him again, "Don't be stupid, yo. I'm just trying to get your retarded body warmed up. If you shiver the whole night, not only will the whole mountain fucking collapse from the unbearable shaking, neither you nor I will get an ounce of rest. Just go to sleep, yo."

Barely giving him time to even feel surprised at Reno's sudden grab at him, Cloud was struck with a flash of memories as the familiarity of the position immediately reminded him of Zack. During a mission back when they were in the army, their unit had to trek through a blizzard in the Wutai Mountains and camped out just like this. That was the night Zack had found out Cloud was really sensitive to cold. A lame weakness, really - which Zack concurred with at the time, seeing as he teased the little trooper to oblivion for the rest of the night. But despite the jokes and playfully thrown insults, Zack had held Cloud the whole night. Just like this. Wait a minute… Fuck, he _really_ needed to stop thinking about Zack.

Admittedly, leaning against the red-head's chest _did_ make Cloud feel a whole lot warmer. A little too warm actually. He was about to push himself off Reno's chest and insist on sleeping in a less girly position, but slowly the light of the materia before him began to fade away.

Reno looked down at the blonde under his arm and snorted when he heard the slow and steady breathing that indicated the other man was already in a deep sleep. "Well, _that_ didn't take too long, yo," He couldn't help but chuckle to himself. It was still hilarious that the hero of the planet was this sensitive to a little cold. Though it was more disbelieving that the usually nonchalant Turk would actually go so far as to warm the other man with his own body heat.

Without thinking, his hand suddenly reached out to stroke over the blonde's cheek, initially with an intention of feeling how cold the other man really was, but when Cloud pressed closer to his hand, like a dog urging his owner to pet him more, Reno stared at the blonde and did a double-take. Wait, what the fuck? Since when did Cloud's sleeping face look so _cute_?

Reno shifted a little to get a closer look at the blonde's face through the dim light of the glowing materia and his eyes widened at the difference in appearance the other man had when he was sleeping. The constant furrow Cloud usually had when he was stressed - which he usually was - had softened in slumber and the bags under his eyes slowly disappeared as the man relaxed. He just looked so calm, peaceful, and almost… defenseless.

It was the last description of the other man that made Reno's heart skip a beat and heat rise up in his body. Belatedly realizing how close his face was actually getting to the blonde's, the Turk immediately jerked away and turned his head to look at the materia instead of focusing on the increasingly attractive male resting on his chest. No, no, no. This was just plain wrong. On so many levels. And the fact that Cloud appearance was usually completely androgynous didn't exactly help the fact that Reno was getting somehow aroused by a _man_.

It wasn't _exactly_ new territory for him, contrary to popular opinion that he flirted with everything that walked - which wasn't completely untrue in itself. He had experimented with other guys before during his training as a Turk, half because he was just curious and half because he and the other man that was involved usually just wanted to get a release. It wasn't like he had enough morals in him to feel mentally distressed about it anyway.

But in all those other situations, it was _just_ the sex. He had gone through it because he was aroused and needed some outlet to take the stress off his back. It was never the _man_ he was with that turned him on. He was completely straight and he knew it. Down to the bone.

Which was exactly why the situation right _now_ was so fucking disturbing. The way the stupid chocobo's body was pressed against him was doing god knows what to his hormones and it took every sliver of moral in him to tell himself that - for once - what he was doing was actually _wrong_.

Fuck, come to think of it, he didn't even know what the fuck he _was_ doing. But Reno knew the one thing he could do at that moment. Sleep. Forget about it. The heat would go down after he slept it off. That was the obvious solution.

It was harder than it looked.

* * *

As the sun began to warm the horizon and the dew collected on the scarce leaves scattered across the mountain, a steady ray of heat and brilliance shone through Cloud's pale eyelids and roused him from his deep sleep. And a deep sleep it was. Cloud didn't remember the last time he slept so well since he joined AVALANCHE all those years ago. Since the day he lost Zack on the cliff over Midgar, he had almost forgotten the physical warmth of another human being.

Cloud heard a low murmuring from somewhere above him and suddenly remembered what had happened the night before. But something was different somehow… Maybe it was the fact that Reno's original one arm slung over his shoulder had somehow cloned itself and wrapped itself tightly around the blonde's waist. Yeah, that could be it. Cloud looked up at Reno, who had an eerily dazed look in his eyes, and asked warily, "Uhh, Reno?"

"One million five hundred and seven… one million five hundred and eight… What comes after eight again?" The red-head mumbled, staring drowsily ahead of him, evidently not hearing a word of what the other man had just said.

Cloud narrowed his eyes at the red-head, now somewhat doubting his sanity. "_Reno_. Reno!"

Reno jolted out of his daze. "I swear to God I'm straight!" He blurted out without thinking and immediately cursed himself for it. "Idiot. Idiot. Stupid _idiot_," He muttered under his breath, mentally smacking himself.

Pointedly ignoring the Turk's evident actions of borderline sanity, Cloud pushed himself out of Reno's arms and stood up, "What were you doing?" He asked through a yawn, stretching his arms as he glanced down at the red-head.

Reno looked away, not wanting the other man to see his blood-shot eyes from lack of sleep. Especially since it was because of _him_. "Uhh, _not _counting sheep…?" He replied slowly, wincing as he said it. Damn it. _This _is what lack of sleep does to him. It makes him more of a moron than he is _already_.

"Yeah, I could see that," Cloud said, raising an eyebrow at the other man. If this guy was going to act this stupid every time he woke up, Cloud was going to seriously have to reconsider accompanying him on the mission and just go after himself. Then again, seeing as he didn't know jack shit about the mission at this point, he was probably going to just have to live with it. "Well, whatever you say then," Cloud said with a noncommittal shrug, "We should probably get going if we want to arrive at Junon before late afternoon."

"Yeah, that'd be good, yo," Reno replied sleepily, the last two words cut off by another loud yawn. It took nearly all his willpower to jump up from his position sprawled on the ground and walk over to the motorbike just mere meters away. Not to mention the fact that his muscles ached like fucking hell from trying to keep his hands off the defenseless little chocobo head. And even _that_ wasn't completely successful, seeing as he ended up hugging the other man like he was his unborn child.

As he felt the familiar touch of the red-head's back against his own, Cloud revved up the engine. But before he kicked off to speed down the mountain he turned to the red-head behind him and said in a low voice, "Hey, thanks by the way."

"For what?" Came Reno's lazy voice, the slow drawl nearly completely droned out by the sound of the engine.

Cloud laughed softly to himself at the Turk's indifference and turned back to the front, sliding his goggles over his blue eyes, "For staying up with me all night, what else?"

* * *

By midday, Cloud and Reno had already made their way down the steep mountain sides, thankfully with Reno still intact and _on_ the bike.

That is, until Cloud felt the Turk's head lolling onto his shoulder as he drove the bike steadily towards the ocean. If Reno was planning to reach Junon in one piece, it was doubtful that it was going to happen at this point. Cloud was initially just going to leave the Turk be, seeing as he _had_ spent the entire night keeping him warm after all, but after Cloud realized belatedly that his heart actually skipped a beat at the red-head's touch - well, that just made him ten times more irritated that he should have been, or rather, shouldn't have been.

Cloud nudged Reno's head lightly with his shoulder, "Reno." The red-haired Turk groaned, but seemingly refused to move an inch, only causing the blonde to get even more annoyed at the incoherent reply. If other man was planning on some sort of affection after the night before, hell, he wasn't getting any. "Reno, _get off_," Cloud muttered, elbowing the other man in the ribs. Hard.

"What?" The Turk jerked awake momentarily and glanced at the glaring blonde for a few dazed seconds before realizing what he was doing. "Oh, uhh, sorry, yo. Keep driving and shit, I won' bother ya," He mumbled back, slurring his words as he let his head fall forward instead. It was enough that the top-notch engine was roaring away in their ears _without_ Reno's mumbling.

But it wasn't as if he could really help it. After staying up essentially the entire night, he was just about to doze off for the fifth time, which wasn't exactly the brightest idea, seeing as he was already in danger just from _sitting_ the opposite way on the motorbike. Then again, what was a guy to do?

After making sure the Turk wasn't going to do anymore weird things behind his back, Cloud rolled his eyes and turned his focus back onto the road in disbelief and exasperation. Of all the people he had to work with to save the entire planet, this guy just had to be the one. This cynical, completely apathetic, lazy, incompetent Turk. For all the other man cared, all of Gaia could probably blow into smithereens and Rufus and his men wouldn't take anything to heart. Then again, maybe Cloud was exaggerating. Cynical, apathetic and lazy, yes. But - even if he had to dig deep down for it - Cloud had to admit that Reno was one of the more competent Turks, loyal to Shinra up to the point that it was almost ridiculous and insanely devoted to his work.

But it didn't prevent Cloud from using his mind to send death rays at the other man and make a failed attempt to will him to obliteration as Cloud felt the red-head begin sliding his back across his own. Sweet Shiva, _now_ what was he doing? "Seriously, Reno, _cut it out_." He turned his head to look at the Turk through his goggles. "Could you please stop squirming on the seat? I'm going to kick you off agai--_oh shit_!" Cloud swore as he hastily reached over with his right hand to grab the red-head's collar just before he slid off the seat.

"What the hell--AGH, FUCK!" Reno choked out as he was dragged by the neck of his suit back onto the bike properly. "Shiva, that was a close one," Reno gasped out, rubbing his bruised neck with one hand and clutching the seat of the bike with the other, "Yeah, never falling asleep backwards on a bike ever again, yo. That was a fucking close one."

"Maybe you should just stop dozing off randomly," Cloud said exasperatedly, "Didn't you get _any_ sleep last night?"

Reno flinched noticeably, belatedly hoping it to be covered up by the steady bouncing of the bike over the rugged terrain. "Uhh, I…" He stammered out rather lamely. Like hell he was going to let the other man know he actually spent the entire night with temporary insomnia just because he was turned-on. "Well, er, that's just because… I mean, well… You snore!" He blurted out finally.

"Yeah, that's what I thought--wait, _what_?"

Reno smirked to himself and folded his arms triumphantly, rather proud of his hastily conjured cover-up. It honestly wasn't that clever, but Reno was too tired to think otherwise. "That's right, yo! Like a shittin' old man you snored!" He continued derisively.

"Okay, that's it. Screw kicking you off the bike, I'm gonna--" Cloud swung his fist around to punch the red-head in irritation, but was stopped short by Reno's hand. The blonde looked over his shoulder to glare at the Turk and was met with the red-head's own sardonic grin.

"What, you wanna fight?"

Cloud's blue eyes met with the red-head's crimson ones for a few moments before he smirked back at the Turk. After the battle to save Gaia those few years ago, Cloud had ceased engaging in any fights whatsoever if he could help it. It was just in his nature. Exhausted from the wars he had fought all his life, all he wanted was some peace. But it was something in the Turk's eyes. That playful, yet sadistic, look in his gaze roused the childhood feeling in him again, that childish urge he always had that caused so many cuts and bruises. The Turk was so dynamic it sucked Cloud in, no matter how taciturn and reticent he wished to be.

"You don't stand a chance, dumbass," Cloud found himself joking back, a contumelious sneer on his own usually expressionless face, "What was that you said back at the bar again? 'Cloud lost to me twenty-seven times'? What a joke."

"Well, you know what?" Reno jumped up and snatched out his stun baton from its holster. "I'm gonna take that challenge, yo!" He sprang up into the air and brought his E.M.R. down upon the motorbike rider, letting out his signature battle cry. "_Uryaa_!"

Lightning fast, Cloud kicked the switch on the side of his bike and pulled out his First Tsurugi, the six-part fusion sword he had used to defeat Sephiroth back in Edge. He only needed the base three parts for his little scrimmage though. As if Reno _actually_ deserved the full First Tsurugi. Spinning around in his seat, he caught Reno with the blunt side of his blade and flung him back into the air.

"Holy fuck, I forgot how gigantic that sword was," Reno muttered as he back-flipped midair and soon came soaring back down to earth. He landed with his hands on the metal-covering over the tire and spun his legs around in a windmill, effectively kicking Cloud clean off the seat.

"Shit." Cloud just barely grabbed the edge of the seat in time to swing himself back up onto the motorbike, landing with his feet on each of the handlebars. Immediately after regaining his balance, Cloud had to almost rely completely on reflex to block another swift blow of the E.M.R. and dodge two other kicks. Ducking under Reno's leg, Cloud reached up and grabbed his ankle, twirling his sword twice for momentum before swinging it around and--!

"Shit, Cloud, move the bike!" The Turk suddenly yelled, twisting his leg out of Cloud grip to brace against the incoming impact.

Without even a second of a hesitation, Cloud instinctively moved his legs just the slightest amount the first direction that came to mind, enough to maneuver the motorbike around whatever obstacle that was behind him. As they zoomed by, Cloud realized that it was all for what? There was nothing there. Reno smirked and took this moment of hesitation to strike Cloud across the head with the stun baton.

Cloud stumbled from the electric shock and almost lost his balance on the handlebars, but not before he bent down and launched himself off into the air. He spun around meters above the motorbike and split his huge broadsword into two. "Pretty dirty trick there," He called out as he sliced down at Reno.

"Oh, fuck." Reno muttered, though not forgetting to flash the blonde a smirk, as he looked up at the two swords coming down at him at an insane speed. He leaned back out of the way at the precise moment and flipped over Cloud's head to face him from the front of the bike. "I'm a Turk, what can I say?" The red-head grinned, tossing his stun baton from hand to hand, "All's fair in a game of… yo, what was the saying again? …Fuck it." He snatched the baton from the air and swung back to attack the blonde once more, but before he could even move his feet an inch, Cloud suddenly pointed behind him.

"Hey, watch it, Reno!"

Reno stopped mid-lunge and rolled his eyes, "Playing the exact same trick as the original user is just stupid, yo. Even Elena knows that. And _she's_ the newbie."

Cloud shook his head in dissention and quickly grabbed Reno's shoulders to spin him around to the face the front, "No, you idiot! Look!"

"Huh?" Reno said intelligently as he watched the scene unfold before him. He tilted his head in confusion. For some bizarre reason, Junon was approaching them at an awfully high speed. The red-head must have been more tired than he originally thought. Wait a minute… that wasn't right. Reno's eyes widened, "HOLY SHIT!"

Noting that the moronic - and probably already disorientated - Turk wasn't going to move an inch on the handlebars, Cloud quickly spun the motorbike around with his legs and threw his weight backward, so the bike was skidding towards the city on its side. It initially didn't put much of a stop to the motorbike, which was previously moving at a near two hundred miles per hour, but fortunately, it slowed to a halt just before hitting a group of men at the edge of the city.

Cloud and Reno, on the other hand, weren't nearly as lucky. After getting dragged in the dirt for about a mile, they came out of it heavily bruised and covered in dust - ironically, a result _after_ remaining completely unscathed from their light duel.

"Ugh. We're here," Cloud groaned from his place half under the bike. So far, this journey _really_ sucked.

"Damn," Reno coughed out in the swirls of dust around them as he slowly pushed himself off the ground, "We got here faster than I thought, yo."

As the red-head reached down to help pull Cloud's left leg out from under the motorbike, the group of Junon men stepped closer, curious as to how two complete strangers miraculously teleported to the edge of the city using no more than a dust storm and a blazing red commodity. Upon closer scrutiny, however, it seemed the blazing red commodity wasn't much of a stranger after all.

"IT'S YOU!" A rather large man yelled suddenly, pointing at the red-head in rage.

Reno glanced up with raised eyebrows, curious as to what sort of odd stranger would be so rude as to spontaneously shout at mere travelers. Upon closer scrutiny, however, it was evident that the oddly rude organism was not much of a stranger either. "IT'S _YOU_!" The red-head pointed back, equally loudly but less enraged. On the contrary, it looked as though the Turk was genuinely amused.

Cloud brushed the dirt off his clothes and looked between the two men, nonplussed, "_Who_?"

The man jabbed his finger into Reno's chest with a frightening look of rage. Though it seemed that the frightening way the man's face was deepening into a dark prune color was more amusing, as was evident from the way Reno merely shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged with a nonchalant look on his face in reply. It was a rather impressive feat of courage, considering the man was almost twice his height. "Hey, I remembah yous," The man said dangerously, "Yous da one who cheated me and mah buds off a' money da last time dat Rufus or whatever came ta Junon!"

Cloud stared at Reno incredulously. "What the hell?" He mouthed at the red-head.

"Yo, about that," Reno said, a calm yet silently derisive sneer on his face, "I'm actually surprised you remember me, yo. Trauma too big for you, big man?"

The lethal-looking man and his cronies just glared at Reno in reply. One even cracked his knuckles menacingly, though it seemed to only augment Reno's amusement. "Turns out yous ain't much uhva poker playa afta all!" The man continued to yell, spraying spit over every surface within a five meter radius, "Jus' a lyin' cheat!"

At this, Reno laughed loudly, a mocking tone in his words, "Well, in the end I figured I didn't need to cheat much after all, yo. For a scary-looking muscleman, you sucked like shit!"

"Why ya little--!" Finally unable to hold back their anger, each of the thugs pulled out their own guns and began shooting at the two men.

"Blast," Cloud groaned at his companion's childish insults and pulled out his sword again to block the dozens of bullets flying their way. He was about to swing his First Tsurugi at the thugs to knock them unconscious when Reno suddenly surprised him by using the force of his sword swing to launch himself into the air.

Reno pulled out his retractable stun baton and snapped it out in the air. "You're gonna hurt someone with those, yo," The Turk grinned mock politely. He fell from the skies and whacked the leader of the group over the head with enough force to concuss him for a week. The red-head then used the unconscious man as a pad to back-flip to Cloud, who was still standing there in an offensive position.

Reno rolled his eyes and grabbed Cloud's hand, pulling him away from the now even more furious thugs. "You idiot, there's no point wasting our time fighting these morons, yo. Just run!" Just barely dodging the spray of bullets behind them, the two men dashed behind the inn and into the shadows.

Cloud shook Reno's hand off his and rounded on the other man the moment they were out of sight. "What have you gotten us into now, Ren--" He began irritably.

"Quiet, Spiky!" Reno slapped a hand over Cloud's mouth as the thugs charged by them towards the beach.

"They went down there, I saw them!"

"Don't let those cheats get away!"

As Cloud listened to the retreating footsteps, he mentally groaned and wondered exactly how he got himself involved with this stupid conflict. Oh yeah, he accepted Reno's stupid ass job. Right. Cloud pushed Reno's hand away and looked around the corner before hissing, "You're a fucking idiot, you know that?"

"Not as much as the guy I knocked out over there, yo," Reno snickered, gesturing for Cloud to follow him as he peered around the corner himself to see if any other thugs were around. "He challenged me and Rude to a game of poker the last time Rufus came 'round to Junon, yo. Stupid choice, really. Rude got completely stripped of his money, but those goons didn't even consider the idea that I was cheating their asses until they had to resort to betting off all their clothes. Too simple." Reno laughed again before edging along the wall towards the entrance to the inn.

Cloud stared at the red-head's back in disbelief as he walked into the inn behind Reno. The blonde had figured as much. To be a cynical Turk like him, one _had_ to have amazing dexterity of the fingers, not to mention deceptive skills second to none. Small wonder the thugs ended up stripping down to the depths of humiliation in a poker game against the other man.

Cloud closed the door behind him only to find the red-head searching through a - he glanced over the man's shoulder in dismay - seemingly empty wallet.

"Yo, how much money you got?" Reno muttered to his companion as he turned out his pockets.

Cloud shrugged, holding up his arms as if to signify his lack of money. "Almost none," He said before slowly scrutinizing the other man, "Didn't you bring any?"

"What, you kidding me?" Reno said with a short laugh, waving a very thin wallet in front of Cloud's face, "Only a couple bucks. I thought you would bring some, yo."

"_You're_ the one who dragged me on this mission, so should _you_ have all the stuff we need?" Cloud demanded, narrowing his eyes at the red-head.

The other man was evidently forgetting that the two of them weren't exactly on a Turk assigned mission here. Otherwise, Reno would have loads of money to spend on a whim. The red-head groaned loudly, "You idiot, I--"

"Umm, we have one room for fifteen gil. Is that cheap enough?" The old innkeeper cut in tentatively from behind the counter.

The two stopped arguing for a moment to stare at the innkeeper oddly as the words slowly sank in. "We'll take it!" Reno replied quickly, grabbing the keys and walking briskly up the stairs to the rooms.

"_Hey_," Cloud called after him as he began to walk up the stairs at his own pace. This insanely cheap room was really suspicious. Maybe it was filled with cockroaches or something. Or haunted by some ancient ghost of a Wutai warlord that was going to kill them in their sleep, which was, er, highly unlikely. But as he walked through the open door of their room, all he found was Reno gaping at… a single twin-sized bed? What a rip off.

Reno turned to Cloud awkwardly, "Uhh." Panic rose somewhere in the back of his mind the moment he realized he would have to spend yet _another_ night sleeping in close quarters with the blonde. He was going to need sleep at _some_ point on this mission. But along with that fear of insomnia came a surge of euphoria and an ounce of, what was it, desire? Fuck. Wait, what the hell was he thinking? This was a bad idea no matter how he looked at it. Not to mention the one clear fact he had in his mind at that moment. If he slept next to that guy for another minute, his fucking retarded body may not be able to hold back this time.

"Well, _that_ was a complete waste of fifteen bucks," Cloud commented irritably, clearly annoyed at the fact that there was only one bed. But it wasn't just annoyance that showed on his face. Needless to say, this was an awkward moment.

Reno started to move towards the door again, "Yo, do you… wanna change rooms?"

But Cloud just brushed past Reno and into the room, "There's no point. Even if we wanted to, we don't have enough money for it anyway." Another awkward silence floated on by, to the point that Cloud couldn't take it anymore. "I'm going to take a shower." He said quickly as he walked into the bathroom and slammed the door closed.

Reno nudged the room's door closed with his foot and walked over to collapse on the bed in a daze. It was enough that Cloud actually agreed to this, but as the usually composed Turk heard the shuffling of clothing and slow rush of water, his mind was happy to conjure all sorts of imaginative images of the blonde as he showered innocuously. He closed his eyes to try and ignore the myriad of images flashing through his head. But that made it even worse. It seemed like his mind was a little more creative than he thought because soon the images began to warp into scenes of what Reno could possibly be doing if he was in there with the other man. Suddenly, the room began to overflow with what seemed like a stifling heat and…

Fuck. This was wrong. Reno sat up abruptly and shook his head fiercely. How could he call himself a fucking Turk if he couldn't even control some fucking hormones? "This is killing me," He muttered, as his ears couldn't help but start focusing on every minute sound the blonde made in the other room. Realizing what he was doing _yet again_, the red-head decided that maybe life would be much easier for him if he just went off to go sleep on the roof. Right now, fighting those brainless thugs was a much better alternative to fantasizing about another man. This was getting fucking out of control.

Now resolute about his decision, Reno jumped up off the bed and made for the door, but before he could reach for the handle and bolt out of the room, there was a soft creak of a door behind him and the sound of the voice he had been trying so hard to banish from his mind just moments before, "Wow, fifteen gil and they don't even get us some shampoo? Hey, can you go ask for some--Reno? What are you doing?"

The Turk stopped in his tracks and, despite himself, turned around to respond to his name out of habit. But the moment he caught sight of the blonde, golden hair dripping with water and a towel around his waist, his defenses shattered. "I, uhh," Reno stammered as his fucked up imagination suddenly hit him with a vision of Cloud, not dripping with shower water, but with hot sweat, and his waist not covered by a white hotel towel, but with himself, draped over the other man and pressing against him-- "I wasn't peeping at you taking a shower!" The red-head said quickly, half from an attempt to abruptly cut off the disturbing, yet strangely arousing, image and half from an odd urge for retribution. It didn't exactly work.

"You weren't doing _what_?" Cloud stared at Reno suspiciously and then grabbed a towel from the bathroom counter to throw over his dripping wet hair, "Okay, maybe I should just rephrase my question. _Where are you going_?"

"Not to the bathroom?" Reno blurted out without thinking, yet again. He didn't count exactly how many times he said _fuck_ in his head, but the number was probably close to the hundreds. "Wait, I mean, I wasn't going into the shower after you--Wait, I mean--agh, fuck."

Cloud just continued to stare at the red-head with narrowed eyes. "Oi, what the hell is wrong with you? If I didn't know better, I'd probably think you were some clone doing an extremely bad impression of yourself. Are you seriously right in the head right now?"

The guy had a point. Reno really needed to get out of there before he made an even bigger fool of himself. "N-nothing's wrong! I'm just, er, going for a walk, uhh, because… because…" He spun around quickly to avoid the blonde's scrutinizing gaze. Plus, his face was now roughly the same shade as his blazing red hair. That too. "Fuck--I mean, yeah, a walk! Don't wait up for me!" And with that he nearly wrenched the door off its hinges and slammed it behind him.

He heard the blonde mutter something through the door behind him but at that moment he didn't really care what sort of comment Cloud made about his sanity. Hell, if he was in Cloud's position right now, he'd probably have himself admitted to a mental hospital.

As his mind went through the conversation he had with the blonde only seconds before, Reno let out a heartfelt groan and slid down the wall to sit sprawled in the hallway. Fuck going on a walk. He was so mortified, he had trouble breathing, much less physically moving his legs. That would require some form of coordination. And with the way his brain was working right now, he was going to have to fuck coordination as well.

"God dammit," Reno muttered as he buried his face into one hand, the heat from his cheeks a stark contrast to his cold palm. He sat there for a few moments just trying to regain control of his wild imagination and breathing rate.

Wait a minute. What the hell was all that back there? That wasn't like him at all! Reno cursed yet again as he realized he was acting like a complete girl about the whole thing. "Idiot," He muttered to himself, "What are you thinking, yo? Fucking idiot. You're a highly-skilled, amazing, undeniably awesome, and _completely straight_ Turk! Get a grip, get a grip, _get a grip_." He uncovered his face with his hand and punched the hardwood floor hard enough to even make himself wince. "Cloud Strife is fucking off limits, Reno. You know that. He's a guy. You like girls. Girls are sexy. Girls are soft, hot, and SEXY. You are straight. You are straight. You are straight." Reno chanted to himself incessantly for a few moments before deciding himself that, yes, indeed, he was straight and he believed it heart and soul.

There we go.

With a deep breath, Reno pushed himself off the floor and stood before the door. "You like girls. You are straight," He muttered one more time before swinging open the door, his usual grin plastered on his face, "Yo, I'm back."

"Wow, you walk fast," Cloud commented flatly from somewhere on Reno's right. He was fully clothed this time, but the fact that he was lying on a bed affected Reno more than it probably should have.

"Uhh, yeah," Reno said, staring intently at the opposite wall.

Cloud squinted at the red-head's appearance carefully, "Hey, your hand's red, and I heard a loud bang in the hallway. Was that you--"

"I'll sleep on the floor," Reno said quickly, walking briskly to the head of the bed to grab the pillow and throw it on the floor, "You take the bed. I've slept in worse places." There, _that_ was it. Just act normal. This was just a fluke. He couldn't be, in any way, shape, or form, attracted to this guy. No fucking way.

"Hey!" Cloud sat up and glared at the red-haired Turk lying on the floor, "Give me back my--"

"You get the bed, so no complaints, yo! G'night!" And with that, Reno closed his eyes and spoke no more. The faster he fell asleep, the less chance he'd get to think about any perverse things he could potentially do that night. That couldn't be too hard, considering the fact that didn't get a wink of sleep the night before. And he couldn't possibly manage to attack Cloud while he was sleeping. He was sure of at least that.

Or else, that would be seriously ridiculous.

* * *

**well, i have fun writing these fight scenes, haha. dream #563: to write a fight scene on cloud's motorcycle. CHECK.**

**hmm, poor reno. if it really was possible to attack cloud while he was sleeping, that _would_ be seriously ridiculous huh? nudge nudge wink wink. i guess all i can say is, look forward to the next chapter?**

**every review eightdimensions reads, her writer's blocks go kablooey. her motivation goes shmazam. and her updates appear like zafoom. (i really have no idea where i got those words.)**


	3. Mine

**NOTICE: No jellyfish were harmed during the making of this story.**

"_Hey, Cloud! One of the cadets gave me a pair of earrings today_!"

"_What_, _why_?"

"_No idea, I think he likes me or something. Hey, I know! I'll give you one_!"

"_Don't be dragging me into your hero-worship problems with the recruits, Zack. Wear them yourself_."

"_Aww, don't be like that, cutie. Anyway, I can't wear one on my right ear. That's like publicly announcing that I'm gay_."

"_Stupi_--"

"_Here, I'll put it on for you. Ah ha! Hey, Cloud, you like it_?"

"…_Yeah_."

Cloud was abruptly jerked out of his dream when an extra weight suddenly toppled over him on his bed. His first instinct was that the person - or thing - was some assassin sent by the Kir Facaz scientist, but before he could lunge for his sword by his bedside and slash through the intruder, he opened his eyes to see a flash of blazing red. Cloud froze just inches from his First Tsurugi and stared down at the "attacker" on top of him.

"What the--_Reno_? What the hell are you…?" He glanced around the room in bemusement and quickly discovered that the bathroom door was wide open. This guy washed his hands, right…? No, wait, that was the least of his problems.

Cloud slid his knee under the sleeping Turk's stomach and made a failed attempt at trying to shove the other man off. Reno just wound his arms around Cloud's neck and held on tighter. It was beginning to be debatable whether the red-head was really this affectionate while he was sleeping - something completely opposite from his usual uncaring personality - or was in fact wide awake and reaping revenge for the night before. Either way, it was working. Unfortunately for Cloud.

"Reno, you _moron_!" The blonde muttered furiously, "Get--get off!" By this time, Cloud had half the mind to really just take his First Tsurugi and slice through the Turk as he would an actual intruder, but paused mid-lunge when he spotted the pillow that Reno had left forgotten on the carpet. Hell, maybe I'll just sleep on the floor, he thought dryly, better than being smothered by this idiot until morning.

But before he could wriggle his way out, the red-head shuffled on the bed until he was nearly on top of half of Cloud's body and wrapped his leg around one of the blonde's, his thigh rubbing almost dangerously close to the other man's groin. "Oi, don' leave, yo…" Reno mumbled, his words slurred from being half-asleep.

Cloud bit his lip, his body stiffening in reaction to Reno's touch. Stupid, stupid, stupid, what a fucking _moron_, he thought, cursing himself more for his own reaction to the red-head's seemingly innocuous movements. Then again, he really did have reason to be angry with the Turk. Reno made such a big deal about sleeping on the ground and now he crawls into Cloud's bed? Way to be _completely_ hypocritical.

"I'm not a fucking body pillow, you idiot!" Cloud said annoyed, at a volume not far from yelling, despite the fact that the walls were noticeably thin and it was the middle of the night. Though running the risk of waking the entire inn was less than worth it. Reno didn't budge an inch.

But before Cloud could make any more subtle movements to edge out from under the Turk, the quiescent red-head began moving again, mumbling softly in his sleep. Cloud froze altogether, tensing despite himself. Fuck, was this guy a human or a dog? Why couldn't he just shut up and sleep _still_? Cloud glared down at the other man and hissed, "You moron! You seriously need to stop shuffling around and let me go before I--ah!" His threat was interrupted abruptly when Reno unexpectedly nuzzled against the blonde's neck. Cloud gasped and almost had to suppress a moan from being caught off guard.

Fuck, that was retarded sound. Cloud bit his lip again, clearly annoyed at himself. Even if he had to grudgingly admit - somewhere in the deep, dark recesses of his mind - that the Turk's lips brushing against the sensitive skin on his neck just _maybe_ felt a _little_ good, this wasn't the fucking time for it. Really, this needed to stop. "Reno, I'm going to punch you any second now…" Cloud muttered into Reno's hair. As irrelevant as it was, the Turk's hair smelled surprisingly good. Fingering his long ponytail of blazing red hair, Cloud suddenly found himself wondering what kind of wash the red-head used… And cursed when he realized his mind had wandered.

As Cloud resumed his futile attempts to shove the red-head off of him, he heard a drowsy mumble from somewhere around his shoulder, "Cloud…"

"Urk," The blonde muttered intelligently, surprised at the fact that Reno was actually dreaming about him. Then again it probably shouldn't have surprised him that much in the first place. The other man _was_ sleeping on top of him at the moment after all.

The Turk began mumbling to himself again, slurring his words so much that it was almost completely incoherent. Cloud just groaned and decided his failing attempts at releasing the man's death grip on him would probably be more successful than trying to pry into the red-head's dreams. But at least one recognizable phrase managed to float into his ears. "I'm sorry, Cloud…"

"_What_?" Cloud blurted out from genuine shock, almost forgetting to lower his voice.

"Sorry…" Reno continued, now speaking more clearly, almost in response to Cloud's reply, "Sorry I took you away from Edge for this mission… Don't get pissed, yo…"

Cloud looked down at the man, not sure whether to laugh because that was seriously what Reno was dreaming about or to look taken aback that the sincerity of his words. Did the cynical Turk really have such a gentle side to him? Shiva, after all those years of running away from the Turks and warily - and not to mention grudgingly - accepting their cooperation while _still_ doubting the Shinra group all the while, it was hard to believe anything worthwhile came out of their mouths at any given time.

But as Cloud looked down at the red-head, the Turk's eyebrows furrowed in genuine distress over the fact that he forced Cloud on another mission to ruin his attempt at a normal life and the softness of his tone when he spoke the blonde's name, Cloud couldn't help but feel a certain doubt in his mind that maybe the usually nonchalant Turk actually had some heart after all. There was no doubt that Reno would probably still turn away from drowning puppies without any sense of guilt in his mind, but somehow Cloud's heart ached at the concern the red-head felt for him - subconscious or not.

Cloud laid back his head again, sighing to himself. "It's okay," He found himself replying in a low voice, "I don't regret it."

Unable to muster up the strength to move anymore, he closed his eyes and, despite himself, relaxed into a deep slumber in the red-head's arms.

* * *

"You're kidding right? Did Reno really hack into Rufus's computer?"

"Wouldn't be the first, nor the last, time I would imagine, Elena. But why would he even go so far as to go searching through Rufus's confidential files? The President keeps them hidden from us for a reason, as I'm sure he well knows."

"Obviously, it's because you got us on probation, Tseng. It was just a joke."

"…If you two got away with it, I would have been stuck to that chair for a whole week."

The rest of the Turks crowded around Reno's office table back at headquarters, scrutinizing all the hastily gathered papers and information scattered over their fellow red-haired Turk. Rude peered at the open machine before him and narrowed his eyes at the sight of it - not that it actually mattered, seeing as no one could really discern any sort of emotion through the black man's nearly opaque sunglasses. "It was kind of stupid of him to leave his laptop on with all the evidence here," He muttered, clicking his tongue in exasperation, "I thought I taught him better than _that_."

"Hmph," Tseng folded his arms and shook his head at the amateur's laptop, evidently still holding a rather childish grudge over Reno's attempted prank. "Just proves how incompetent he really is."

"Oh, shut up, Tseng. Just 'cause me and Reno want to have a little fun--"

"C'mon, you two," Elena cut in hastily, before the heated argument potentially got physical between her two fellow Turks, "I think we should probably turn our attention to the more pressing issue here: why Reno would go off on his own in the first place."

"Hrmm," Rude mused thoughtfully. Of course, being the red-head's lifetime partner, Rude would know him better than any other Turk in the force. "Well, we usually get the good missions when he's off the job. So, he's probably trying to get himself off probation."

"You mean, get himself killed," Tseng interjected in a low voice, as he leaned over the laptop and scanned through the various files. He clicked on the most recently opened file and leaned back, letting out breath of air. "It's the Kir Facaz experiment."

"_What_?" At these words, Rude grabbed the laptop and stared at it millimeters from his face. Upon realizing that it was much too close for him to see the actual article, he put the laptop back down on the table to read it. He rubbed his bald head with his right hand and groaned audibly, "Does he have any idea what he's getting himself into?"

"H-hey, wasn't that the warning report we got today?" Elena asked slowly, peering over Rude's shoulder at the laptop herself, "Something about… a dangerous lab scientist aware that the Turks were on his tail?"

"Yeah, I remember that," Rude nodded as he scanned quickly through the rest of the long article Reno had looked through mere days before, "If we didn't know what it meant then, we sure as hell get it now. What a coincidence. And we just recently got new information on the experiment too."

Elena let out a relieved breath of air and laughed nervously, "Good thing we hadn't showed that report to the President yet, or he'd have out heads."

"Yeah, tell me about it. But," Rude said as he looked meaningfully towards his other Turks, "You know what we have to do now, right?"

Tseng turned away from his two co-workers and rubbed his temples with one hand exasperatedly, "You can't be serious, Rude…"

The other man just snapped the laptop closed and straightened his tie, "We gotta warn Reno."

* * *

A short helicopter ride over the mountain range and several more grudging comments later, the trio of Turks arrived at the edge of Junon just after daybreak. Tseng spotted the custom-made motorbike belonging to the sword-wielding delivery boy and gestured towards the inn, "They're probably spending the night in there. Looks like they haven't crossed the ocean yet."

"All the better for us then. Let's go!" Elena said as she pulled out her pistol and burst through the inn door, startling a barely awake innkeeper along the way.

"Elena, we don't need guns. It's an inn for Shiva's sake," Rude called out to the blonde's retreating back. He groaned as he watched her bound up the stairs and out of sight. Always the newbie, some things never change.

The feisty Turk dashed down the hallway, completely unaware of her disrespect for the other travelers sleeping in their rooms, and burst through the unlocked door at the end, "Renooo! Wake uuuu--"

Originally striding up the stairs at their own page, Rude and Tseng broke into a sprint, simultaneously pulling out their handguns in response to the petite blonde's subsequent shriek of what seemed to be terror. "Elena!" Tseng yelled, uncharacteristically concerned for his fellow Turk, "What's going o--WHOA!"

Upon reaching the doorway and laying their eyes upon the same scene that caused the female Turk's scream, Rude's gun dropped from his hand, as well as Tseng's jaw from his face. Needless to say, the three Turks gaped shamelessly at the scene before them.

And the looks of astonishment were not uncalled for. With their clothes askew and limbs tangled in such a way that their actions the previous night were certainly suspicious, Reno and Cloud looked nothing less than two men who were considerably more than just accomplices.

"Nngh…" Cloud groaned as he slid in and out of consciousness. Upon realizing that the entire right side of his body was completely numb, he nudged the top of Reno's head with his chin, "Get off, Reno. I can't feel my arm."

Reno opened his eyes slowly, squinting in the steady stream of sunlight and clearly reluctant to move from his surprisingly comfortable position. He didn't remember the ground being _this_ soft. Wait, that wasn't right. "_What the_?" His eyes shot open to meet Cloud's own just centimeters from his own, the resulting look of dumbfounded horror on his face endlessly amusing. "Wagh!" Reno yelled alarmed. And he seriously thought that his sleeping self wouldn't assault the blonde? Sweet Shiva, was he fucked up.

Elena picked this very moment to close her gaping mouth, only to open it again and blurt out, 'What are you two doing?"

The two guilty culprits on the bed simultaneously turned their heads towards the door, clearly shocked by the fact that they actually had an audience. Reno sat straight up, hastily fixing his shirt and goggles into a somewhat presentable state. "What the fuck are you guys doing he--WHOA!" And promptly fell off the bed. "Fucking--oww…"

"What are you Turks doing here?" Cloud finished as he sat up himself, shaking the blood back into his stingingly numb arm and pulling his shirt back down. He was slightly puzzled himself at how exactly his clothes got so disheveled, but wasn't sure he even wanted to know the answer.

"Answer my question first!" The female blonde demanded, still pointing an accusing finger at the two men.

Both Reno and Cloud looked at each other and immediately blushed a bright red.

"We were--!" They began in stereo.

They pointed at each other at exactly the same time, "He was--!"

"Stop copying me!" The two yelled, glaring daggers.

"Hmm, and here I thought we were going to have trouble finding you guys, seeing as Reno was so determined to sneak out on this mission. But who knew you two just wanted some private alone time together?" Rude voiced out, promptly preventing the two men from waging a mental war against each other.

Reno jumped up defiantly. "What--no!" He said a bit too fast.

Tseng smirked, choosing this moment as a perfect chance to get back at his fellow Turk, "Well, you two seemed pretty intimate sleeping on the same bed. Or were you doing more than just sleeping? Guess I didn't take you for the type to, well, you know what I mean, don't you, Reno?"

Reno leapt up from the bed and grabbed the Wutaian's collar at a speed that would have shamed even Cloud at his fastest. "If you don't fucking shut it right now, I really would be doing more than just sleeping," He said menacingly through gritted teeth.

"No, but seriously. You go off on a self-assigned mission - apparently - and bring Cloud Strife of all people," Rude stated logically, "And then you two go on and share a single one-bed room?"

"That's so sexy…" Elena whispered spontaneously.

"_Huh_?" The four men turned to the female Turk in disbelief.

Evidently dismayed at the fact that she actually voiced her thoughts aloud, Elena quickly realized her outburst as her face turned redder than Reno's hair. "I--I didn't mean it like that!" She explained quickly, waving her hands in front of her, "It's just that, you know, Cloud and Reno are both really hot and I just, well, I just thought that them sharing the same bed was really eroti--no wait, I mean--agh, shit." She slapped her hands over her eyes, utterly mortified.

"That… is just disturbing, yo," Reno said as he slowly loosened his grip on Tseng's collar, thinking that maybe if he let go of her love interest, she'd get back to her senses. Maybe.

"Yeah," said Rude, subtly edging away from the blonde, "We _guys_ really didn't need to know that."

Cloud just stared at Elena for a moment before groaning to himself. This conversation was going _completely_ in the wrong direction. "Reno just went to the bathroom last night and came to my bed instead of sleeping on the ground like he said he would and I tried to get him off but he wouldn't let go," Cloud clarified hastily before any more troublesome misunderstandings could be made.

Reno nodded understandingly, slowly getting a grip on the situation, "_Oh_, so that's what happened, yo. I _thought_ it was weird how I ended up there." He laughed nervously. Although it was even more bizarre how he ended up in that position. Fuck, it was enough that _he_ knew what his body wanted. He didn't need the guy he was somehow _lusting_ for to know it as well as he did.

Tseng smirked at Cloud's words and raised an eyebrow at his fellow Turk mockingly, "He wouldn't let go, huh?"

"Okay, that's it, yo! I'm gonna fucking kick your ass until you fucking--"

Cloud sighed and put up a hand to stop Reno before he tackled the Wutaian man to the ground. "So, I answered your question," He said in a low voice, looking up at the three suited Turks, "It's time you answered mine. What are you three doing here?" Admittedly, the whole scene of each Turk making a pass at the red-head until he exploded was surprisingly amusing, but Cloud seriously doubted that they came all the way across the continent from Healin Lodge just to poke fun at the relationship between him and Reno, or rather, lack thereof. The Turks had better things to do. Though from the sounds of Reno's attempted prank on Tseng, maybe they didn't.

Prevented from being able to utterly _destroy_ Tseng, Reno settled for sitting on the bed in a huff instead. "And how did you find us, yo?" He demanded.

Tseng rolled his eyes and said, not bothering to make himself discreet, "An amateur as always."

"_What was that_?!"

"If you guys are going to the Wutai Continent, you guys are obviously going through Junon. It doesn't take a genius to figure that out, Reno," Elena said, folding her arms over her chest proudly. Quite. If even Elena could figure that out, Reno may truly be incompetent indeed.

"Plus, you forgot something back in your room. Careless mistake on your part, partner," Rude cut in before Reno could make another contumelious comment.

"My laptop!" Reno exclaimed, grabbing the machine out of Rude hands and kissing it in relief, "I knew I forgot something, yo!"

"Well, let's just forget the fact that you're an incompetent retard and get to the point," Tseng said, evidently wishing to give the last blow to Reno's steadily shrinking ego - assuming that was possible, of course. But before Reno could lunge out for the other man in rage, Tseng pulled out a stack of papers and spread them out on the bed in front of him.

"This is…" Reno picked up a few papers, scanning over them as Cloud crawled over on the bed to take a look for himself.

"The Kir Facaz experiment," Elena answered promptly, "If you hadn't rushed out to catch the guy without us knowing, you would've received them yourself. The information arrived from our recon just today."

Cloud grabbed an article titled "Lab Scientist Obtains Research Grant For Human Experimentation" and glanced at the rest of the papers with increasingly narrowed eyes. He held the article up in front of the three Turks. "Why are you giving us information about Kir Facaz? I thought you three came to force us back or something."

"Rufus actually doesn't know about any of this," Rude shrugged indifferently, "We got a notice that the people working on Kir Facaz somehow knew you two were after him, so since we just got this new information, why not just give you guys a helping hand?" Of course, going against the former President of Shinra wasn't exactly the initial thoughts of all three of the Turks, seeing as Tseng was leaning against the doorway with furrowed eyebrows and a scowl on his face.

"Nice call, partner," Reno grinned at the other man, "Just like old times, eh?"

"It's been a while since our last," Rude nodded as he shot an almost mischievous glance at the red-head from under his sunglasses.

"Anyway," Tseng continued after clearing his throat disapprovingly at his two fellow Turks, "Like we said before, now that the scientists know that Reno the Turk and Cloud Strife are after them, they're guaranteed to up the security and speed up development on Kir Facaz. You two need to get to the Wutai Continent and destroy the experiment before this becomes more trouble than it already is." He paused for a moment before looking away almost guiltily. "I'll give you two clearance and coverage on anything you need from Healin Lodge. Shinra owes Gaia a big favor, and it's about time we paid it back."

Cloud nodded in appreciation and gathered the rest of the papers on the bed into a pile. "That should make it considerably easier," He said as he jumped off the bed and reached for his First Tsurugi to strap onto his back, "Just get to the Wutai Continent, take out the experiment, and go home, right?"

"Problem is," Elena piped up, "Kir Facaz is targeting you the moment you step onto the Wutai Continent. You won't have time to dilly-dally searching for the lab."

"_Seriously_?" Reno clutched his head in frustration, "Man, the obstacles are just piling up as we go along, yo." He shook his head and heaved a sigh. "Well, I think the first thing we need to do is get there, yo. We'll worry about the rest once we're there."

"Speaking of which," Rude voiced out from his place leaning against the wall, "Today is Thursday, right? If I recall, the ship will be leaving…" He looked at his watch. "Oh, in about fifteen minutes."

"_What_? Fuck, we need to get outta here!" Reno scrambled off the bed after Cloud, who was already dashing out the door. Halfway down the hallway, he suddenly sprinted back again, "Hey, Rude. I need to borrow some money, yo."

* * *

"Ow, you're sitting on my foot!"

"Well, it's not my fault it's pitch-black, yo."

"There has to be a light switch somewhere here…"

"Yo, Cloud, I think we need to--what the hell is this?"

"That's my belt you're grabbing, you idiot."

"Oh, sorry. Wait, why are you standing up, yo?"

"To find a light switch… ah, here." Cloud flipped on the light switch and immediately the endless rows of light bulbs flashed on. He squinted in the sudden burst of light and walked back, stepping over dozens of boxes along the way, to his red-haired companion.

"Man, that's bright, yo," Reno muttered, covering his eyes with one arm as he slowly stood up against the wall.

Cloud sighed and sat down next to his motorbike, "Well, beggars can't be choosers. I mean, we're in the storage room. This is probably as good as it's going to get." He put his hands behind his head and leaned back against the wall. "Not to mention the fact that we're hitching a free ride too. We're lucky we even caught this ship in time."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," The red-head waved him off and began feeling around the ship, his left hand still over his eyes, "We must've started sailing off. It's getting pretty chilly in here, yo." He heard the blonde shuffle around behind him, no doubt exemplifying his extreme sensitivity to cold for the second time this journey. Reno brushed away any ideas of him warming up the other man with his body _again_ and proceeded to search through the various boxes. "I'll see if I can find some blankets or something before you sink the fucking _ship_ with your shivering--what the?" Amongst all the various items in the boxes, his hand suddenly came into contact with something slippery and… wet? He looked at the object in his hand in utter confusion, "What the _fuck_ is a jellyfish doing inside this ship--AGH, IT STUNG ME! THE HELL?!"

Now completely enraged at a mere coelenterate, Reno flung it across the room, shaking the pain out of his hand and he grumbled, "That's it, yo. I am not staying in this shitty storage room for one more minute!" And with that, he shoved his thriving hand into his pants pocket and stormed off towards the stairs up to the deck. "Fucking jellyfish."

"Hey--what the? Reno!" Cloud called out to his retreating back, making a failed attempt peer around the corner at the red-head from his place by the wall, "It was just a jellyfish, where are you going?"

"Well, it fucking pissed me off, yo! I'm just gonna go find some random guy to knock out, so we can steal his room. And fuck jellyfishes!" Reno yelled back, the loud bang of the storage door following his enraged voice.

Cloud chuckled despite himself at the Turk's reaction to the jellyfish - whatever it was doing inside a ship. But as Reno's sudden exit began to sink in, Cloud abruptly jumped up, moving as if he were about to bolt for the door after the red-head, "Hey--wait! Idiot! You better not get caught!" He stopped mid-step, realizing belatedly that Reno couldn't possibly hear him by now. "Or we might get kicked off the ship…" Cloud finished rather lamely to himself as he slid back down the wall to the ground again. It wasn't that he was being paranoid or anything. Reno was so careless and indiscreet sometimes that it was highly likely he'd catch _more_ than a couple bystanders' attention and get into trouble, especially since his logic was clouded by irritation at the moment - a completely unprecedented reaction to a jellyfish.

Banging his head lightly against the cold metal wall behind him, Cloud let out an unsuppressed groan at the thought of the two getting thrown off the ship they had so much damn trouble sneaking on in the first place. To think that just an hour ago, Cloud and Reno were quarreling yet again about how they were going to get on in the first place. It would've been the simplest thing if it was just the two of them, but with Cloud's more than inconspicuous motorbike, well, it was damn hard. This journey was a lot more trouble than he'd bargained for.

Cloud sighed and leaned against his motorbike on his side, thinking back to the article he'd just read back at the inn. This Kir Facaz person - or maybe even, thing - seemed to have obtained some sort of Mako injection similar to the SOLDIERs, but an almost lethal amount. It almost horrified Cloud to think what kind of monster could resist what could possibly have been severe Mako poisoning to any ordinary human. Thinking back, it suddenly occurred to him that the experiment was likely from the SOLDIER program already, as he vaguely remembered Zack mentioning certain experimental procedures being done on some fatally injured SOLDIERs. Despite himself, his mind wandered yet again to the topic of Zack as he began wondering whether his friend knew the SOLDIER that was created into this lethal weapon. It was certainly likely. Zack knew everyon--

His thoughts were suddenly interrupted as a loud clang of boot against metal sounded near the stairs that lead up to the door out of the storage room.

Cloud tilted his head in confusion. "Reno?" He called out warily, "You back already? That was fast."

No answer.

This struck him as odd. For one thing, he had no idea that that idiot red-head could ever resist babbling in any situation, much less a childish prank. Rolling his eyes irritably, Cloud sighed as he stood up and started walking across the room towards the stairs, "Alright, that's it, Reno. If you're going to jump out and scare me, it's not going to work. You're not a very scary pers--"

"Well, well, well, now what do we have here?" A menacing voice loomed out of the shadows.

_Fuck_. Cloud silently cursed to himself as he spun around to see two - no, three men lurk out of the darkness in the far corner of the storage room near the stairs. Shiva, how could he have been so fucking careless? Life as a delivery boy had evidently hampered his usual paranoia to any stranger near him, especially in unfamiliar places. And it wasn't just the constant alertness from mako-enhanced SOLDIER senses that had dulled. Zack had taught him better than that.

"_Damn, so we're boarding this _boat_ to cross the ocean? You'd think Shinra would spend more money on its precious SOLDIERs and give us an actual ship_."

"_Yeah, I _wish_. Unfortunately for us, this _is_ a ship. Plus, over half of the squadron going on this mission are cute little recruits like yourself. In their opinion, it's hardly worth the mone--Hey, Cloud, watch out, will ya_?!"

"_What the--_Oww_. God, Zack, chill _out_. The way you grabbed me like that, you'd think some oversized monster was going to bite my head off. It's just one of the ship's crewmen. Sheesh_."

"Just_ the ship's crewmen? Ha, guess you're too much of an innocent to recognize that look they were giving you_."

"_What look? And stop treating me like a kid_!"

"_Ow. Feisty, as usual. Well, let's just say if I were them, staring at a hot recruit like you, I'd look like a bunch of animals in heat too_."

"Hot_? Oh c'mon, Zack. I get enough teasing about being a pretty boy from my _unit_. I don't need the whole world gawking at my apparently obvious lack of gender_--"

"_Just… be careful around them, alright? You wouldn't imagine what they'd do to you if they could. I wouldn't want a cutie like you to get taken away. You're mine, remember_?"

"…_Cut it out, I get enough teasing from you too_."

"_Ouch, struck down again. But you'd be lying if you told me you didn't _like_ it, eh Cloud_?"

"_Well_--!"

Cloud quickly shook himself out of his stupor just in time to hear one of the men's next few words, also mentally shooting himself in the process as he realized he was thinking about his past with Zack _yet again_. "Hey, I told ya I saw some guys sneak in here couple hours earlier," One man nudged the bulkier one in the front, who was seemingly the ring-leader in this ambush, "Whatta catch, eh?"

"Looks like blondie's alone for now. Where's yer friend, cutie?" The man lingering in the back asked in a mocking, sugar-coated voice.

Cloud didn't answer, but instead subtly started to edge back towards his motorbike. If it was just one man, there'd be no problem, but he was up against three - not to mention the fact that each of them were nearly twice his height. His hand ached for his First Tsurugi as he subtly scanned over each of the men. He was never _particularly_ adept at hand-to-hand combat, seeing as Zack usually had to hold back at least half his strength to spar with him. …Fuck, this was really not the time to be thinking about that guy.

"You gotta pretty still tongue on you, blondie," The man growled, cupping Cloud's chin and turning his face towards him violently, "Oi, answer me!"

Three men or not, he was just going to have to break for it. Swinging his fist as far as it could possibly go, Cloud punched the man across the face and bolted for his bike.

"Why you little--!" The other two men sprinted after him and tackled Cloud to the ground just moments before his hand could reach the switch for his sword compartments. "That'll teach ya not to mess with us!" The man slammed Cloud's head into the ground. "Punk!"

The bulkier man merely scoffed at the entire show and walked towards Cloud's trapped body with his hands in his pockets. He bent down and grabbed a handful of Cloud's blonde hair, pulling his face up to look at him. "You're a feisty one, aren't you? Not that it matters. Better fuck for me." The other two laughed heartlessly as the man leaned in closer, "You really wanna get to the Wutai Continent that badly, huh? How 'bout we make a deal, you and me." He sneered at Cloud diabolically, "Cooperate for a couple of minutes and I swear I won't rat you out. Whaddya say? I haven't had some tight ass in a while. You're a pretty one too. I promise you'll have a good time."

God, could he fucking be in a worse - or just less _mortifying_ - situation than right now. Cloud closed his eyes for a moment, feeling some hairs ripping out of his scalp from the man's tight grip on him, though, despite the pain, that was the _least_ of his problems at the moment. He looked at the man emotionlessly, "Fat chance, you fuck-ass."

The man stood up whistling, apparently impressed. "You think you're so tough, eh? Well, I'm afraid my previous offer wasn't exactly a question." He nodded towards the other men. "Tie him up."

_Shit_, Cloud thought as he was hauled up and thrown against the nearby wall, his hands tied brutally behind his back. How ironic. And he was the one warning _Reno_ not to get caught too. He slowly stood up, leaning against the wall as the man approached him, cracking his knuckles and sneering all the while. Fuck, how was he going to get out of this one? Where was that idiot red-head when he needed him?

The man put his arms on the wall on either side of Cloud, "You really are pretty cute, you know that?" He said with a sinister smile, leaning closer to lick at the soft skin at Cloud's neck. "I think I'm gonna have fun with this one, boys."

Cloud cringed at the reeking smell of the man's breath and shivered in revulsion from his tongue. "Like fucking _hell_ you are," He growled as he slammed his forehead into the man's nose and, not a second after, raised a leg to knee him hard in the groin.

"Fuckin--damn it!" The man yelled loudly as he doubled over in pain, but almost immediately straightened up again, panting, "Little shits like you need to learn to _behave_!" And with that last word, the man grabbed Cloud's forehead pulling his head forward before bashing it against the wall .

There was a loud crunch as Cloud's head collided with the ridged inner hull of the ship. Cloud groaned, coughing out scarlet blood as he felt a warm liquid trickling from the back of his head and down his neck. The man took advantage of Cloud's sudden disorientation to grab him around the waist and violently pull him closer, fumbling with the blonde's belt buckle. "Oh, you're gonna get it now, punk," The man whispered viciously, "You're gonna get it now. I was gonna let you get away with just a fuck 'cause you're such a cute little bastard, but man am I going to fucking torture you now."

It took Cloud a distressingly longer time than he wanted to hurl himself out of the concussed daze he was in, but by the time he realized what was going on, the man had plunged his hand down Cloud's pants to wrap his fingers around his length. Cloud felt himself scream in his head for him to somehow kill the man on the spot, but his blurred mind could only barely form the words through a raspy throat, "No… no, stop--fucking, no, stop! _Stop it_!"

The man only laughed at Cloud's yells and pulled his hand out of the blonde's pants to slap him across the face with the back of his palm, the sound of it loud enough to echo across the storage room. "Don't lie to me, blondie. You fucking liked that didn't you? Little bitch." He took advantage of how the impact of his slap threw Cloud off balance to flip the blonde over, so he was pressed painfully against the wall instead, his face smothered into the blood that had been dripping from the back of his head.

Cloud heard the clink of the man's belt buckle behind him and suddenly panic flooded his system. But all he could do in his position was swing his leg behind him to kick the man as hard as he could, and even that was intercepted.

The man squeezed Cloud's leg for a moment before pressing the blonde harder against the wall, effectively preventing him from moving another inch. Cloud grimaced at the stench of rum as the man whispered into his ear, "You may be protesting now, but I promise you your tight little ass is gonna loosen up after this fuck."

"You fucking bastard--_Stop_!" Cloud yelled again, struggling with all he had as he felt the man grab at the back of his pants, attempting to pull them down to his knees. Fuck fighting _Sephiroth_. He had thought battling it out to the death was terrifying, but for one of the first times in his life right now, he was scared out of his mind. Shiva, where was Zack--no, where was _Reno_? God, what he wouldn't give to hear that goddamn Turk make some sort of fucking cynical comment at him again. God, what he wouldn't give just to _see_ him again.

Cloud wasn't quite sure what exactly happened next, seeing as his concussed head refused to help him remember the exact details, but before he knew it, he suddenly he felt the pressure on him relieved and opened his eyes to see swirl of black and red. He had never exactly done a huge dose of drugs before, but he thought the experience would probably be somewhat like this. Blurry. Disorientating. Flamboyantly colorful. And strangely elating. Wait a minute. He blinked hard only to see he familiar sight of blazing red hair and signature goggles before him.

Before Cloud's dazed mind could figure out exactly who this mystery man was, the angered sound of his voice confirmed it for him. "You fucking son of a bitch," The Turk growled, with a glare filled with enough rage and bloodlust that it made even Cloud feel shivers run up his spine, "You think you can touch this guy and _fucking get away with it_?! Well, you were fucking wrong, you hear me?!" Reno shouted savagely, kicking a body on the ground intermittently between syllables.

It took Cloud a moment to realize it was the man that pinning him to the wall only moments before, now bloodied and bruised himself, no doubt by the hands of the enraged Turk.

The red-head pointed his E.M.R. at the other two menacingly, "This… is mine, you bastards. Now get the fuck out of here before I decide to beat the fucking shit out of you like this idiot here on the floor." He gestured towards the stairs fiercely with his stun baton. "_Well_? GET OUTTA HERE! And take that trash with you!"

The two men whimpered pathetically before dragging their unconscious leader unceremoniously up the metal stairs and out the door.

But even before the storage room door had slammed closed, Reno had already stuffed his E.M.R. into his pocket and bent down to get a better look at Cloud. "Shit, they really did a number on you, yo. You okay, Spiky?" He asked, quickly reaching behind Cloud to untie his wrists.

Cloud let out a hoarse laugh as he reached a hand up to touch the back of his head, grimacing at the feel of blood caked all over his hair, "You're _seriously_ asking me that? You idiot, Reno. You're late." He was still disorientated enough that the entire world from his viewpoint was one gigantic blur, but he thought he might've seen a worried look on the Turk's face.

"_Hey_," Reno smacked the blonde across the arm, "You're lucky I ended up coming at all, yo. I was roaming around deck, completely pissed about that fucking jellyfish when I heard some crewmen sniggering about some guys going down to a storage room to have a little… fun." His face twisted in revulsion at the idea. "I ran back as fast as I could without getting seen, but… Cloud, yo, did they… did they touch you?" He said, his voice uncharacteristically soft for the usually cynical and nonchalant Turk.

"No," Cloud answered, almost a little too quickly, "They just beat me up a little. It's nothing a potion wouldn't heal." But as he said those words, Cloud winced as he felt Reno's gaze lower to glance at Cloud's unfastened belt buckle and loosened pants.

"Those fucking little bastards…" Reno growled under his breath, his grip on Cloud loosening as if he was preparing to bolt out the door after the men.

"Hey, whoa, whoa! Reno, calm down!" Cloud grabbed the red-head's arm before he could drop the blonde completely, "They just grabbed me a little, okay? But it's not like I'm some emotionally distraught _girl_. You don't need to go running off after them for me - believe me, if I didn't have his goddamn concussion I'd have ran off to pay them back myself."

Reno laughed, despite himself, "Well, at least you're okay enough to be making wisecrack at me." But even as he said it, Reno glanced over at the blood splattered on the wall behind them. Man, was this girly blonde was tougher than he looked. But Cloud was right. He _wasn't_ a girl. So, why was Reno suddenly so apt to burst out of the storage to reap revenge for him? He shook the thoughts out of his head fiercely and lay Cloud back against the wall, "Hey, I'm gonna go wet a rag or something to wipe all that blood of your face, alright, yo?" Yeah, the blondie's well-being was more important at the moment, not Reno's now completely obvious sexuality issues.

As he watched Reno's back, searching through the various boxes, Cloud thought back to the whole experience and shivered slightly. Even if he wasn't a girl, the whole gang rape thing was pretty terrifying. He didn't even want to think about what would have happened if the Turk had appeared even a few minutes later. _This… is mine, you bastards_. "What did you mean by what you said back there?" Cloud blurted out abruptly, an entirely involuntary response to his sudden flashback to Reno's rescue.

Reno froze noticeably in the middle of ripping a part of one of the sailor uniforms he had found, flushing as he thought back to the memory as well. "Er, that was--I didn't--I just said that to make them go away, yo! It didn't mean anything!" He said hastily. It wasn't a lie. It really _was_ to get the men to run off. But some part of his _own_ mind was confused as to why he had said such a thing. Incoherent death threats were more than enough to send the men scampering off, so why had he been so quick to make his claim on the blonde?

Cloud nodded slowly, slightly doubtful of the truth in the entirety of the red-head's reply, but before he could ponder on the reason for Reno's stammering, another thought suddenly occurred to him. "Reno."

"Yo."

"It's great that you came back to help me out and all, but what happened to that room you were going to get?"

"Uhh."

"Don't tell me you seriously--"

"Yeah, about that…"

* * *

**yeah, what _was_ a jellyfish doing inside that ship? reno doesn't know. i don't know. you don't know. it'll be one of the world's greatest mysteries. the jellyfish in junon's ship.**

**and yay, for the rest of the turks appearing in this chapter. it was fun writing dialogue for their such different personalities. and we all know what elena said about reno and cloud is totally true. yeah, you know who you are ;)**

**so, yeah, the rape - or rather, near rape - scene. pretty terrifying huh? yeah, forget sephiroth, gang rape is definitely its own realm of horrors. anyway, lucky for cloud, reno was there to save the day. yay?**

**so anywho, a review would be nice. i work so hard for you people, i deserve at least some credit, yeah? :)**


	4. Promises

**so much fucking shit happens in this chapter.**

**...just kidding, nothing happens.**

"Costa del Sol, yo! I'm back, baby!" Reno shouted out to the sun once he and Cloud were out of earshot of the crewmen on the ship. And for good reason too. After hauling out Cloud's bike and hiding it in an alleyway behind a nearby inn, Cloud was quick to drag the still enraged Turk out of walking distance of the ship. Near rape or not, he didn't exactly want three bloody - and possibly dead - Junon crewmen on their hands.

Reno spread out his arms and faced towards the blue cloudless sky, reveling in the sunlight after being holed up in a dreary, smog-filled city like Edge for so long. "_Damn_, has it been long since Rufus visited the Shinra Villa, yo! I mean, yeah, he couldn't exactly move, much less enjoy a beach when he had that geostigma, but, _man,_ does a guy need some sunshine once in a while, you know what I mean-" Reno raised a hand to playfully smack the blonde across the shoulder, but was surprised to see that the younger man had effectively teleported - or rather, he had moved over to the closest trashcan to tear off the bandages wrapped around his head. "Yo, what're you doing, Cloud?" Reno asked with raised eyebrows.

Cloud shook off the last of the bandages into the trashcan and ran a hand through his mussed hair before making his way back to the red-head. "Well, I appreciate you taking care of the injury for me," He said with a shrug, "But the bleeding has stopped. I don't exactly need them anymore. Not to mention the fact that the Mako in my bloodstream probably healed the wound already."

The Turk looked as if he was going to say something about Cloud's once again lack of interest in his own well-being, but thought better of it, shrugging instead. "Suit yourself, yo. But don't come crying to me when your wound bursts open and you lie on the streets bleeding profusely and die unloved. Just sayin', yo." Reno said indifferently, making a show of putting his hands behind his head and whistling nonchalantly.

Cloud just rolled his eyes, "You're over-exaggerating."

Reno laughed and slung his arm across the blonde's shoulders, nudging him in the side of his head with his fist, "Says who, yo? Next thing you know, you might be bleeding to death and I sure as hell won't be responsible." He managed to get a small snort from the blonde, which only served to augment the teasing Reno wrought upon him. But suddenly, Reno froze mid-sentence, glancing down at the close proximity between him and the blonde. Since when did the relationship between them get so casual that Reno could just playfully touch him as if it were only natural to do so? They had exchanged friendly insults on the rare missions that the Turks and AVALACHE had cooperated on before, but never so much that they actually got close enough to do anything remotely like what friends would do - not to mention the fact that maybe a year or so ago, they would have probably ended up beating each other up for even touching. They _were_ only together for the profits of the Turks after all. Just because it was convenient. Nothing more. So, why was this time any different?

Goddamn, sweet fucking Shiva, he needed something to snap himself out of this homosexual delusion he'd gotten himself into. Reno glanced away from the blonde and, lo and behold, there was the answer right before his very eyes, sparkling blue and wonderfully bikini-clad. "That's _it_!" Reno yelled suddenly, pumping his fist into the air. The abrupt movement actually made Cloud jump in surprise, which would have amused the redhead greatly if he wasn't trying so hard to _not_ think about him. "Yo, that's _it_, Cloud. The fucking beach! That's what we need! After all this gang-rape plus Kir Facaz destroying the world shit, we seriously fucking need some R&R, you get what I'm sayin', yo?"

"No." Cloud put out bluntly. "What are you getting all excited for? You're the one that dragged me onto this stupid mission, you should be the one getting your priorities straight, right?"

Reno looked away sideways. Yeah, and right now getting myself back to being attracted to living, breathing, sexy females is at the top of my list, yo, Reno thought before stuttering out, "Er, well, you know, I kind of just need to, you know, yo—I mean, yeah, right...?" Caught in between just spitting out the fact that he just wanted to get laid and hiding the shameful secret that it was because some sick bastard inside him wanted to get Cloud laid, Reno was left utterly flabbergasted.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," Cloud answered flatly before grabbing Reno's jacket collar and dragging the reluctant redhead back towards the bike they had parked behind the inn earlier. "We have better things to do than me waiting here while you go chase around girls."

"Oh, c'mon, you asshole!" Reno protested, uncaring for how loud or immature he was being at the moment, "Can't you just let a guy get some action before going willingly to his death just because he's on probation, yo?"

"I think we'll get plenty of action once we get around to Wutai. Just wait, Reno. By then you'll be on your knees thanking me I didn't let you run off like a psycho at Costa del Sol," Cloud replied, continuing to drag the Turk along behind him mercilessly.

At this, Reno ceased his protests completely as he was once again dumbstruck from the innocuous double entendre only he seemed to catch. Burying his face in one palm and wishing with all his might that that idiot chocobo-head wasn't a mind reader, Reno cursed his poor luck and double-crossing hormones to hell. "You are so fucking doing this on purpose, Cloud Strife. I am going to fucking shoot you for torturing me like this, yo..."

"What?"

* * *

He technically shouldn't even be driving. The constant flashes of darkness and sunlight through the dense forest coupled with his more than minor concussion from the day before was disorientating to say the least. If he wasn't wearing his tinted goggles, Cloud wouldn't have been surprised if he got a seizure by now with all the flashy lights.

"You know, you technically shouldn't even be driving, yo." The redhead's voice sounded over the loud engine of the motorbike. "With all these flashing lights and shit in this forest, I'm actually surprised you haven't gotten a seizure or something—"

"I _know_, Reno. Don't worry about it, alright?" Cloud rolled his eyes in irritation. Though he probably shouldn't have, seeing as it just made him dizzier than he was before. But from the seemingly disorientating movement, Cloud caught a flash of scarlet from the corner of his eye. In any other situation, he would have passed it off as just another variant of the myriad of colors he was seeing already, but right now the crimson flashes tailing them through the bushes only served to confirm the suspicion he'd had from the past few hours that someone had been following them. "Reno, did you see th—" He began before getting promptly cut off by the redhead's arm swinging over behind him to tap against his upper leg.

"You know, you really should've let me get some action back there on the beach," The Turk called out loudly over his shoulder, amusement in his voice as his fingers roamed around the blonde's leg area.

"Wait, what?" Cloud started hastily as he felt heat rise to his face, "No, now's not the fucking time, what the _hell_ are you—"

The redhead's hand slid further down his leg, but instead of moving inward, Reno abruptly slammed his fist against the switch of Cloud's sword compartment and snatched out one of the smaller – but still undeniably gigantic – blades. "'Cause I'm just aching for it now, yo!" And before Cloud could utter a word in confusion, Reno tossed the sword into the air to get a better grip on the handle and flung it headstrong into the trees beside him.

The Turk nudged the blonde in the head with his fist on the follow through of his swing and laughed, "What are you getting all worked up for, yo? Thought I was going to grope you? As if a Turk like me would let a tail get past my eyes, yo."

"Kind of..." Cloud grumbled under his breath, cursing himself for reacting in such a way to what was now obviously a move in response to his earlier warning. "Wait a minute—Hey! That's _my_ sword, you idiot!" Cloud yelled in protest.

But no sooner after he said it, the sound of two gunshots echoed throughout the vast forest, closely followed by the clang of what was undoubtedly bullets on steel. Passing through yet another patch of sunlight, Cloud caught sight of the ray of light reflecting off the sword that was flying back towards them just in time to maneuver the motorbike out of the way. The sword collided into a neighboring tree with a low thud.

Cloud swung his motorbike around on its side and skidded to a stop just as the scarlet enemy landed gracefully on the road before them. Reno flipped over Cloud's shoulder and off the bike with one swift movement and leaned against the front tire, smirking, "Well, well, if it ain't Vincent Valentine, yo! Got some nerve shooting at us like that."

The cloacked-man glared at him for a moment before walking towards the sword protruding out of the tree near him. "If I recall, it was you who threw the sword at me first." Wit ha light tug on the hilt, he pulled the sword out with ease and tossed it back to Cloud. "It's been a long time, Cloud. Reno." He acknowledged the latter with only the slightest of nods. Evidently, their previous encounters with the Turk in the past years was not yet above him enough to consider Reno an ally.

Cloud caught the sword with one hand and brought it up to his face, scrutinizing the blade with a frown. "Damn it, Vincent. I thought you knew better than to _shoot_ my sword like that. You know the First Tsurugi doesn't stand a chance against the Cerberus' bullets." He shot an extra glare at Reno as he slid the sword back into its holster on the motorbike, but the Turk merely shrugged.

"I'll pay for repairs, yo. No big."

"Yeah, you better."

"All jokes aside, Strife. What are you doing here?" Vincent took a couple steps closer to the two, simultaneously brushing his long cloak back with his clawed hand. "Last I saw, you were back to being the honest-to-good delivery boy working for Tifa's Seventh Heaven, living the peaceful life. Now, you're here with Reno the Turk?"

"Last I saw, you were doing recon around the Shinra Building. Now you're here on the Western Continent?" Cloud retaliated. He doubted that the former-Turk was this down south for no reason at all. He had better things to do.

"Hmph." The black-haired man glanced at Reno and then back at his comrade, "If you two are here for the reasons I suspect, then my travels won't be for naught. I've been somewhat searching for you." He gave Cloud a meaningful look before continuing. "I went to the Wutai Continent."

Reno's eyes narrowed as he crossed his arms in speculation, "Kir Facas, huh?"

"Indeed," Vincent nodded and made like he was going to elaborate, but instead his gaze landed upon a couple of traveling merchants a ways behind them. He turned towards the forest and gestured for the two to follow him. "It may be wiser not to talk out here in the open. The information I am about to give you isn't to be overhead by the common traveler."

Upon proceeding to a more isolated clearing, Cloud parked his motorbike and immediately cut to the chase. "Vincent. Tell me what you know." These were the exact words he had said before in the Forgotten City's surrounding forests after his encounter with the Jenova remnants. The stealthy sharpshooter never failed to collect a myriad of useful information from the various cities he had traveled to and incidents he had seen.

"I went to the Wutai Continent a few days back to confirm whether or not the rising suspicions about another calamity of the planet were true," The former Turk began from his place leaning against a tree in the darkness, "It wasn't easy finding the lab deep in the mountains, but after consulting Yuffie and some Wutain traders and getting past security, I saw Kir Facaz."

Reno leaned closer in curiosity, "You _saw_ him? Was he human, or just another monster created from Mako and Jenova cells?"

"He was... human." Vincent paused as if trying to pick out the right words to say. "Or rather, something between a SOLDIER and how Professor Gast created myself. He didn't seem to be like a Jenova remnant like Sephiroth, but he was clearly just as dangerous."

"What, was he being field-tested or something?" Cloud questioned, though he didn't know whether to be relieved or intimidated by this information. Like a Mako-enhanced SOLDIER but not quite Sephiroth. It would take quite a feat of power to defeat this Kir Facaz, but at least it wasn't another insane monster with psychotic urges to take over the world. Just a scientist who reaped revenge.

At these words, Vincent turned towards Cloud, looking him directly in the eyes. "Something like that. He fought like you."

"He—what?"

"Vincent." Reno said suddenly, looking up at the man from his place on the grass with a serious look on his face. The older man merely returned the look with the slightest of nods and then gesticulated subtly towards the ex-SOLDIER. The Turk glanced over at the blonde from the corner of his eye before slowly standing up and brushing the dirt off his clothes. "Yo, uhh, Cloud, go get some firewood will ya? It's getting pretty dark. I, uhh, can't see shit around here, yo."

"_Huh_?" Cloud looked from Reno's face up to what could barely even be called a sunset in the sky back down to the overly wide grin on the Turk's face with raised eyebrows. "You're kidding, right?"

Reno awkwardly plastered smile immediately faded to a clearly irritated glare. "I'm not, yo. Now get outta here!" He yelled hastily before booting the other man in the back and pushing the blonde into the trees behind him. "Hey, better get back here with an armful of that shit, or I'm wrecking your bike!"

"The hell—you're an asshole, you know that?"

"Whatever, yo!"

Though, luckily, because of the blonde's naturally taciturn personality, he left without another word. Reno waited a moment to make sure the other man was out of earshot before turning back to Vincent, who was leaning against the tree with a clearly amused look on his face, "Alright, now_—what,_ yo? I'm a paid Turk, not an award-winning actor. Let's see you do better."

"I didn't say anything," Vincent said dryly, shrugging.

"Well, you...! Alright, forget it, yo. You better cut to the chase before Spiky gets back," Reno said in a low voice, his eyes scanning the trees warily. "I know you're hiding something."

Vincent scoffed and shoved a hand into his pocket, looking up at the blood red sky, "Do you really think I should have let out another hint that it's actually _him_? Give me a break."

The redhead ran a hand through his hair, still slightly confused, "I have my suspicions, but honestly, I don't think I believe even half of what I think it means." After all, Reno was the one who had researched the entire mission in the first place. Despite the lack of information the Turks had on the experiment, he probably already knew enough to confirm that his suspicions were true. And with what Vincent had hinted, the truth might as well have been splayed out in front of him clear as day. But now he just didn't want to see it.

"I'll tell you straight out then." Vincent let out a slow breath and then continued in a dark voice. "Kir Facaz was originally found half-dead on the cliffs of Midgar. Long black spiked hair. And a SOLDIER uniform, riddled with bullet holes." He paused. "A 1st Class SOLDIER uniform."

"Then..." Reno actually had to cough to clear his throat before opening his mouth again. Suddenly, his throat felt unusually dry. "Shit, yo. Then I know exactly what this means," He muttered as he pulled out his e-mag rod and started scratching letters in the soft dirt of the forest floor. He took a step back and began drawing lines from the name to more letters below the word. "K... I... R... F... A... C... A... Z..." He closed his eyes momentarily at the sight of the new words formed before punching a nearby tree so hard he dented the bark. "_Fuck_... Zack Fair. It can't be."

"Zack Fair was merely convenient... because everyone already thought he was dead. But by intermittently injecting Mako into his already SOLDIER-enhanced body, he wouldn't die from mere bullet wounds. All they needed to do after that was bring him back to the lab and begin testing. He would _only_ be their experiment." The two men fell silent, both eyes focused on the pair of names before them as if they needed to see it physically to believe it was actually true.

But as much as it pained Reno to see Kir Facaz's true identity, he could barely even imagine what the truth would do to Cloud. From how much Rufus mocked the blonde for his pseudo-ex-SOLDIER status, it was clear to anyone how deeply ingrained the memory of Zack Fair was in Cloud. The Turk shut his eyes tightly, cursing himself for even thinking to take Cloud on such a mission for such a trite reason as getting off probation. But even through his closed eyelids, he could still see the name as if it were tattooed in his mind, just as his guilt was. Fuck morality. Fuck it all. This was just wrong.

"What are you going to do, Reno?" Vincent's voice interrupted his thoughts suddenly.

Reno slowly opened his eyes and peered down at the name once more, his e-mag rod hung loosely in his hand. "I..."

"Alright, the sun's still not down and I'm back with your useless firewood."

"WAGH!" The red-haired Turk yelped in shock and fell back hastily over the words scrawled on the dirt. "Fucking—god, _fuck_, Cloud! You sure have the worst timing in the fucking world, you know that, yo?" The spontaneous anger was half from the fact that he was so wrapped in his thoughts he forgot to be on guard for the other man, and half from the embarrassing position he was put in. With the split second moment of panic he had, the only instinctive means he had to cover up the truth was with his rear. Literally.

Cloud narrowed his eyes at the other man and dropped the armful of wood on the ground before him. "Pretty suspicious look there. What were you two talking about? Appreciate the gratitude, by the way, Reno."

"Er..." Reno glanced quickly at Vincent behind him with a meaningful look before springing to his feet and grabbing the blonde's arm, hurling the other man off balance. "Nothing! Thanks for the wood! We'll chat again later, Vince? Gotta go, yo!" And with that hastily yelled goodbye, Reno unceremoniously threw Cloud full-bodied onto the back of the motorbike and drove off top-speed. Ignoring the subsequent punch in the back from the blonde behind him, Reno rode as fast and far away as possible, uncaring as to which direction he was actually going. At this point, it didn't matter. He either needed to get Cloud off of this goddamn mission, or rip the truth out of his own mouth.

A week ago, the choice would have been obvious. But now... they both seemed equally painful.

* * *

Reno skidded to a stop by the gates of the closest town he could get to. The sky was pitch black at this point and, in all honesty, the Turk could care less for the fact that he had no idea where they were. With his mind still racked with thoughts of the supposedly dead SOLDIER, reading the name of the town off the gateway in the dark would have taken far too much effort.

Cloud groaned as he slid off the back of his own motorbike, evidently still irritated by the Turks' previous antic. He glanced around through the dark before meandering through the gates, calling at the redhead behind him, "Shiva, you Turks are all of a kind huh? I hope you got enough information from Vincent while making me search for that firewood you never used because—" Cloud suddenly froze at the familiar silhouette of the well before him. The image of the well against the starlit sky was a memory so pronounced in his mind, he could have recognized the place a mile away. "_Nibelheim_?"

"_If I'm ever in a bind... you'll come to save me, right?_"

Cloud flinched, clutching his forehead with one hand. He hadn't returned to his hometown since Sephiroth had revealed the truth to the illusion Cloud had created for himself years ago. He couldn't bring himself to step back into the very town he was born and spent his childhood in. The very town he helplessly witnessed burn to ashes.

"_Promise me, Cloud!_"

"Hey, Cloud, you alright, yo? You look kind of pale."

Cloud's eyes snapped open at the familiar voice to see the red-haired Turk peering at him with an uncharacteristically concerned look on his face. Reno reached out to steady him for a moment, but Cloud brushed his hand off and walked briskly towards the inn beside them. "I'm going to sleep," He said in a low voice before throwing a few dozen gil on the counter and blindly making his way to any of the various open rooms.

He heard the Turk walk into the room moments after and ask him something before settling in himself in the other bed, but the words were a blur in Cloud's mind. Just another sound accompanying the incessant chatter of memories that crowded his thoughts. He shut his eyes under the cover he threw over his head and gripped the bed sheet so tightly in his fist that his hand felt numb, desperately trying to cling onto reality. But he felt himself steadily losing himself to his memories. It was just like how it felt when he fell into the Lifestream in Mideel. Helpless. Confused. Racked with fear.

"_SOLDIER... Shinra... Sephiroth... I hate them all!_"

"_Cloud... get Sephiroth_..."

"_Cloud, you came for me. Just like you promised_."

"_I'm gonna be in SOLDIER_!"

"_The calamity from the skies, Jenova. Mother_..."

"_Cloud_..."

"_Don't get in my way_."

"_Cloud_!"

Cloud awoke with a gasp, covers wrapped tightly around him like a straitjacket and drenched in cold sweat. He quickly untangled himself and sat straight up in his bed. If he thought going to sleep would cease the voices in his head, it was nothing compared to what he was feeling now.

"Cloud? The hell are you doing up, yo? You have any idea what time it is?"

Tifa. Sephiroth. Zack. Their voices and feelings so strong it almost completely engulfed him. He needed to get out of it. Cloud swung his legs over the edge of the bed and slowly made his way across the room. Blinded by the piercing headache, he stumbled out the door and into the hallway.

"Hey. Hey! You listening to me, yo? Argh, I'll just follow him."

Even as he finally staggered out into the night air, every breath he took smelled of Nibelheim. No, not Nibelheim. Not the Nibelheim he knew. He had no connection to this town anymore. No one even knew him here. Cloud walked slowly across the ground aimlessly before eventually colliding into a wooden column. He felt the splintered wood with his hands and looked up with unfocused eyes.

"_Whenever I'm in trouble, my hero will come rescue me_."

"_What_?"

"_I want to... experience that at least once._"

"_All right, I promise_."

Cloud shoved himself away from the well abruptly, as if avoiding physical contact with it would cease the eruption of memories it had caused. But it only continued to steadily worsen. He blindly staggered farther into the town, desperate for release from his mental torture. He had promised he would protect Tifa that night, but she was still nearly killed by Sephiroth. Who was he kidding? He couldn't protect anyone. Not his friend, not the girl he had loved so dearly, not Nibelheim, not even the planet. Too weak to fight without the help of stronger allies. It was always like this. Coward.

"Yo, it's fucking four in the morning. Don't make me drag you all the way back to the inn, yo."

He suddenly heard the creak of a gate and looked up. The Shinra Mansion. He pushed the door open and stepped inside the mansion, breathing in the air, old and unused, his boots echoing across the room with every step. This was where everything started. Sephiroth went from an admirable SOLDIER General to an insane monster, obsessed with revenge. The town was burned down. Tifa was stabbed. Zack defeated.

"_Sephiroth... you_!"

"_What're you—GUH_!"

"..._Cloud, you did good_..."

This was too much.

"You are seriously in bad shape, yo. We gotta get back."

It pained him to even open his eyes the slightest bit, but as his hands touched the familiar roughened door before him, he gazed up at it as if he could see through the wood and into the room. Through the stone door beyond it and into the basement. Into the files. Into all that happened. It made him sick.

"_Cloud_..."

It hurt.

After all that happened in that basement with Sephiroth and then Zack, everything began collapsing around him. His hometown. His mind. And even his goddamned false memories. Savior of Gaea? Hero? Bull shit. He started everything. And all he did was piece back together all the people and cities he ripped apart. Destined to be in battle for the rest of his miserable life. He was the beginning of everything.

Cloud raised a clenched fist and punched the door in front of him in sheer anger. Or was it out of agony? "Damn it..." He whispered as he swung his fist back yet again. "Damn it." And again. "Damn it!" And again. "Damn it! DAMN IT! _DAMN IT_!"

Then he felt warm arms wrap around him, restraining him from banging up his hand even more. And then a familiar voice. "What the _fuck_ are you doing, yo?" Reno said frantically, his arms tight around Cloud from the back and his hand around both of the blonde's wrists. He felt blood dripping down on his own hand, blood that was clearly not his own.

Cloud rested his forehead against the dented door, somewhat appeased by the warmth against his back, tying him down to reality, but still racked with memories, enough that he had to strain to hear the Turk's voice. "Get out of here, Reno," He said in a low voice, breathing heavily from anger, "Just fucking leave me here."

"The hell are you talking about, Strife?" Reno began, confused, "All right, it's my fault for driving you here, okay? Let's just get out of here. It's messing with your head, yo—":

"Damn it, Reno! Just fucking leave me alone!"

"Will you just shut it?" Reno yanked the blonde away from the door and pulled him in tighter. "I..." He paused, letting his head fall on Cloud's shoulder. "Listen. I don't know what's wrong with you and I can't even begin to imagine what's going through your head right now, but I won't leave you here, yo."

"I don't... You should go, Reno." Cloud clutched his head in his hands, feeling the pain flow out of his mouth before he could even stop himself. "Coming back to this place just made me realize all over again. You should get off this mission. I don't... I don't want you to end up like Zack. I don't want... someone else I care about dying because of me again. This calamity only exists because of my own failures. No one... no one should have to die from that."

"What...?" Reno blinked before letting out a short laugh from genuine amusement. "You are one huge fucking idiot, you know that?" He put his hands on Cloud's shoulders and turned him around to hold him properly. "No one's going to die, yo. Not me. Not you. Seriously, like fucking hell you're going to do this mission without me."

At this, Cloud began to protest, "No, but I—"

But Reno just raised a hand to press Cloud's face against his chest, muffling his words. "And if anyone deserves some good in this godforsaken world, it's you, Cloud. I won't leave you like Zack did," He said in a low voice, "I promise, yo."

Cloud just stood there, face wedged against the redhead's dress shirt, enveloped by his arms. Something about the way the Turk said those words, filled with that cocky sort of confidence he always had, made Cloud almost begin to believe it himself. "Thanks..." He mumbled eventually, "Thanks, Reno."

* * *

**just kidding, i lied. kind of.**

**alright, well, the not-so-well hidden truth is finally revealed! kir facaz is zack fair! props to _the devil wears white_ for guessing it straight off the bat. i tried to litter around some hints here and there until now. whether i failed or not, i don't care. there's only so much i can do with the eight letters of zack's name. seriously.**

**and about cloud being extremely depressing in the end. uhh, well, he's a tortured soul, what can i say? i promise more comedy and smut in the near future! :)**

**review?**


	5. Girls?

**this was actually a drabble i put in randomly back when i _didn't_ cut out the costa del sol chapter. don't particularly miss that shitty chapter, but i just can't bring myself to delete this drabble! cloud and reno are such morons when it comes to love. they're hired mercenaries, what do you expect?**

**enjoy.**

"Yo, uhh, Cloud, do you like girls?"

"…"

"Well, do you?"

"…What kind of question is that?"

"Er, you know, I'm just wondering because—You know what, just shut up and answer the question, yo!"

"Uhh…"

"Oh my God. Is that an 'I'm unsure of my sexual orientation'?"

"SHUT UP, RENO."

"Ha! You're kidding, right?"

"Well, do _you_ like girls? I saw you reject those bikini clad ladies back at Costa Del Sol."

"That was—I was just—"

"Can't even answer your own question…"

"Hey, I _do_ have an answer for that, yo!"

"…And?"

"I, uhh… I like someone else, okay? There! That's a completely practical answer."

"What the? Who?"

"Someone... with blonde hair."

_"Elena_?_"_

"Shit, no!"

"Well, who else do you know with blonde hair?"

"…"

"…"

"What the hell… you're an fucking idiot, yo."

"What?"

* * *

**what'd i tell ya?**

**super stupid.**

**hoped you guys liked this once in a lifetime - not really - deleted scene. if you did, review. if you didn't, review anyway.**

**just do it. (i endorse nike.)**


	6. Breathless

**uhhhh, yeah, this chapter isn't worksafe. please don't read it in public? well, i mean, you can if that's your thing, but, i mean, hey, even i would feel embarrassed for that.**

**happy reading.**

"So, this is where the guy who made the Highwind, eh?" Reno scrutinized the house before him as he hopped off the bike. For such a technical genius, Reno would've expected maybe a slightly larger building? Or maybe something that looked less slovenly. Then again, he wasn't one to talk, seeing as his own private apartment looked only marginally better than a piece of shit.

"The one and only," Cloud replied before raising a fist and rapping on the front door loudly, "Hey, Cid, you in there? We need some help!"

No answer.

Reno rolled his eyes and brushed past the blonde, sighing, "Yo, no one's going to hear those girly knocks, okay? Here's how you do it." He took a breath and then kicked the door incessantly between yells, "Hey! Cid Highwind! _Open up, yo_!"

"Cut it out, you idiot!" Cloud grabbed the Turk by the arm and pulled him away from the door, hastily. "You wanna break the door down or something? If he's not there, then he's not there."

But no sooner than the words came out of his mouth, a voice called to them from inside the house. "Can't a man get a moment of peace in this goddamn town? You break your TV? I fix it! Your car breaks down? I give the repairs! I'm no mere technician, I'm a fucking pilot for fuck's sake! _And_ I'm working on my ship! Damn it all!" The door suddenly swung open to reveal the face of a very disgruntled Cid Highwind. Clearly, the man was not happy. And with good reason.

Cid huffed a cloud of smoke into Cloud's face at the sight of him and continued furiously, "Ah ha! A pair of delinquents! _No, don't deny it_. I can just see from that spiked up hair of yours, Blondie! And that suspicious motorbike behind you? Ha, you think you can fool me? And _you_!" He pointed an accusing finger between Reno's eyes. "What kind of shitty ass hair is that? It's bright fucking red! You must think you're so goddamn cool with that long ass ponytail of yours, huh? What, you want my money?" He grabbed his signature spear out from behind the door and shoved it in the direction of the two very confused men, now unsure of whether this man really was the genius technician they thought he was. "Hey, I saved the fucking planet a couple years back! You think you can take me on?"

Cloud raised an eyebrow at these last few words. So, the man throwing the temper tantrum really _was_ Cid Highwind. Then again from the looks of that familiar sandy blonde hair and old greying blue jacket he always wore, who else could it be? Cloud pushed the spear tip away from his face, annoyed yet thoroughly amused, "What, have you gone senile in old age? You're not even forty yet, Cid. I don't believe for a second that you've forgotten me."

Cid squinted at the two men, clearly still puzzled at the familiarity the two delinquents were talking to him with. "Fuck, you know what, forget the planet, Sephiroth should have destroyed the sun. I can't fucking see a thing while it's setting—Eh?" The pilot's eyes widened behind the shadow of his hand in front of him. "Strife! And a Turk? What, you in trouble or something now, Spiky? Who knew Rufus was _this _persistent—"

Reno groaned and slapped a hand over his face at the supposed ingenious creator's current incomptence, "If you actually listened to us a few minutes back, you'd know we need your help, yo."

The wide grin on the pilot's face disappeared so fast it could have been considered genuine magic. "Hey, you want an ounce of my help, you better drop the attitude, kiddo! Don't think I haven't forgotten the shit you Turks gave us underground Sector 8," Cid snapped at the redhead.

"You didn't _have_ to fight us, yo," Reno grumbled, folding his arms in irritation.

The pilot just shot the Turk another glare before turning back to Cloud with a sigh, "Who would've thought Shera saved me so much time before repairing planes? Sure, I'll help you two out with whatever, but I'm warnin' ya, I haven't slept in a couple days."

"By the way, where is she?" Cloud asked curiously.

Cid merely shrugged as he waved for the two to hurry into the house, "Visiting relatives. Sure left me a load of crap here though." He waved off the afterthought and collapsed in a chair, propping a leg up on the table. "Well, have a seat then! Or ain't my hospitality good enough for ya?"

Reno and Cloud exchanged looks before scrambling into the extra seats. The ex-SOLDIER cleared his throat before looking at the pilot with a serious look on his face, "Better cut to the chase here. We're running out of time. Reno and I need to get to the Wutai Continent to chase after Kir Facaz and to do that we're going to need a plane. Kir Facaz is a—"

Cid held up a hand to interrupt the blonde, nodding slowly. "Yeah, I know all about him. Vincent came by a couple of days back and dropped the bomb about that bastard. If you two are on a mission to finish him off, I don't blame you. In fact, I highly encourage you. Rocket Town's been booming now that Shinra's gone, so there's no doubt Kir Facaz will come to obliterate this place too." He then paused, scratching the stubble on his chin with a frown and furrowed eyebrows. "Although, about the plane problem..."

Reno looked at the pilot completely deadpan. "Don't tell me you don't got one, yo. If you're saying we came all the way across the Western Continent to Rocket Town for nothing, I'm going to seriously have to fucking choke a bit—"

"No, no, no, that's not it," Cid said hastily, waving his hands in front of him to clear the misunderstanding. "There's just one thing." He groaned, sounding frustrated. "Oh man, you guys came at the right time, alright. Shera, being the goddamn klutz that she is, just broke my latest plane last week! I've been spending the past few days fixing it up but I can't really guarantee—"

"So, you _don't_ have a plane!"

"Shut it, Turk! I never said that!" Cid snapped at the other man, but it seemed the redhead was already at his limit.

Cursing under his breath, Reno jumped up from his chair, kicking it out of his way. "_Fuck_ this shit. I'm fucking outta here, yo. If anyone needs me, I'll be at the bar down the street." And with that, the Turk shoved his hands in his pockets and strode out the door, slamming it with one foot in irritation.

Cloud stared off after the other man from the window, eyes widened in surprise. Annoyed, frustrated, exasperated, cynically rude, Cloud had all seen before. But he didn't think he'd ever witnessed the usually light-hearted Turk genuinely angry. As uncaring as the other man was about the world at large, Cloud had doubted that anything could really get to the redhead. The fact that something actually _did_ this time was intriguing to say the least.

"Yeah, if anyone needs you," Cid muttered in annoyance, the words pulling Cloud out of his thoughts. "Alright, Turk or not, here's the truth," The pilot continued in a serious voice, "I got a plane. I mean, it's not the best piece of machinery in the world, but it can definitely get you guys across the ocean. I only spent the past few days fixing it up, so it might be a bit rocky here and there, so you sure you wanna—"

"We'll take it," Cloud said hastily, "It doesn't matter how we get there, we just have to get there."

"Yeah, that's the spirit!" The pilot laughed, "Knew you numbskulls would take the chance." Cid nudged the blonde in the shoulder with his fist, grinning heartily, and jumped off his chair. "Why don't you come out back and take a look at the plane. Piece of shit or not, you two are going to be spending a hell of a lot of time together tomorrow."

Cloud heaved a sigh before sliding off his chair to follow him out the back door, "Yeah. I don't doubt it."

* * *

"Yo, can I get another shot over here?" Reno watched as the bartender briskly strode over to fill his empty glass, only to drain it once again the second it was full. The Turk and the other man exchanged glances before the redhead just waved a lazy hand towards the bottle and said unabashedly, "You know what, why don't you just leave that here, yo. Save you a couple of trips."

"Rough day?" The bartender asked as he slid the bottle across the counter on a coaster, along with a larger glass. It was a smart choice. At the rate the Turk was going through his shots, drinking out of the small glass he originally had would probably have cramped his arm.

Reno shook his head absently as he poured himself another glass of liquor, his chin propped up on his arm on the counter. "Man, you have no idea, yo..."

"I get that a lot," The bartender chuckled before moving to attend other customers farther down the counter, "Rocket Town's finest. You'll be guaranteed to have forgotten all your troubles by the time you wake up again. If you do, that is."

Reno let out a half-hearted laugh at the remark. With the high-alcohol tolerance that he already had, his highest expectations for the liquor were for it to _at least_ knock him out for a night, much less for the rest of his life. He took one last look at the bottle before pressing his closed eyes against one palm and cursing himself to oblivion.

It really was true that there was a first time for everything. But somehow the moment he got himself on this godforsaken mission, he's been experiencing _quite_ a few first times. For one thing, mentally imploding back at Highwind's house and walking out from sheer anger. The mere thought of it made the Turk groan loud enough that if he was less immersed in his thoughts, he might have actually been embarrassed.

He didn't _get_ angry. Honestly, Reno didn't even think Rude had ever even witnessed a scene like that, and now Cloud _and_ Cid Highwind had to see it. Thinking back, he really couldn't blame the blonde for looking stunned at his abrupt exit. But the true reason for it was probably the last of Cloud's own possible explanations.

Reno drained the glass once more, but paused when something in front of him caught his eye. He blinked in the middle of pouring himself another glass, peering into the mirror behind the bar counter, set as a replacement for a side of the wall. But it wasn't the presence of the mirror that surprised him, rather the somewhat unrecognizable expression he had on his face at the moment. Reno of the Turks was cynical, sadistic, loyal only to Shinra and the rest of the division. Nothing on his face used to show the care in the expression he had in his reflection at that moment.

The care he seemed to have for Cloud Strife.

At first, it was just the lust. The carefree irritation he had for his own body and its reactions to the other man. It was admittedly odd, but something of a completely natural physiological response for him – albeit just plain wrong.

But he didn't know when, or how, the man that he only seemed to respond to with his body began to mean something more to him. When the sight of the blonde in the hands of another man made him want to damn the bastard to hell. When he began to feel guilt in his heart that only used to feel apathy. When he started making fucking promises to another man because cared. When he began losing his temper over something as trite as a plane delay.

Everything was just fucking _wrong_.

Realizing that the glass in his hands was actually starting to crack from his grip, Reno hastily let go and shook his head fiercely. He needed to just let everything loose. Just fucking let it go. Stop caring about every little thing that had to do with Cloud Strife. Especially, the situation with Zack Fair—

"Oi..." Reno frowned, watching the alcohol merely drip out intermittently from his upside-down bottle. "Yo, can I get another one of these over here, yo?" He called out to the bartender, waving an arm to catch his attention.

...Zack Fair, he thought again, grimacing at the prospect. No, that was definitely the one thing he had to let himself care at least somewhat about. Lack of morals or not, he had to break it out to Cloud somehow.

He watched as the bartender graciously filled the glass for him and slowly let his head fall on his arms instead, staring blankly at the bar counter.

Somehow, Cloud had to find out. Better from himself, than through his own eyes. But how the fuck was he supposed to tell Cloud his best friend was still alive, tortured for years as some scientist's experiment?

Reno closed his eyes, mumbling to himself through his jacket sleeve, "Fuck it all, yo..."

How was _anyone_ supposed to do something like that...?

* * *

A loud creak of the bar door woke Reno up from his dreamless sleep with a jerk. He squinted through the dimly-lit room to see a shadowed figure walking towards him. "Yo, Cloud," He said with a nod. The words came out of his mouth before he was even sure who the figure actually was. From actual want of the other man, or just his drunken stupor he had no idea.

"I was out helping Cid fix up the plane a bit. It's going through a bit of a rough patch, but he says it'll be ready by early morning. Claims at least." Cloud glanced around the room before collapsing onto the chair beside the red-head. "Been here a while, huh?" He said with raised eyebrows.

"Oh really?" Reno said absently, twisting around half in his chair to survey the rest of the bar behind him. The image came out half in a blur but he got the gist of it anyway. Everyone was gone. No more late-night drunkies in the corners – or if they were still there, then passed out on the floor. Not even the bartender was out working anymore. Reno could vaguely see the light on in the backroom where the man was undoubtedly camping out for the rest of the night. Although, he didn't think the bartender actually trusted him enough to leave Reno in the bar alone – well, until he saw what was scattered across the counter before him at least. There they were, nearly half a dozen bottles of Rocket Town's strongest, all empty before him.

"Wow, new record," Reno chuckled to himself, fingering the nearest half-empty bottle, "I thought I could only handle three in hard liquor."

"Looks like you had fun," Cloud said with an amused look on his face. In any other situation with any other man, he would have just rolled his eyes and turned away, but somehow the fact that it was Reno made it more endearing than annoying.

Reno reached over to grab an empty glass from behind the bar counter and placed it before the blonde. "The more the merrier," He shrugged, pouring the other man a drink, "Don't leave me hangin', yo." He watched as Cloud reluctantly acquiesced and raised the glass to his lips. Reno wanted nothing more than to tease the chocobo-head to oblivion about his obvious low-tolerance to liquor, but all that was running through his head was how his entire journey with the other man was just a huge fucking lie. With no mental plan in his head at all, he found his mouth moving before even knew what was going on.

"Zack Fair."

Cloud flinched in the middle of placing his glass down on the counter – the action nearly making him choke on his gulp of alcohol – and looked at the red-head bemused. "What?"

Reno was no less confused himself. It took him a moment to realize the words had actually come out of his own mouth and another moment to think up what exactly he was planning to follow up with after saying it. He propped his head on his arm and raised his own glass to his lips, not really planning to drink what was left in the glass but just needing something to do with his hands. "You and him... you were, uhh, pretty close, huh?"

Reno couldn't see Cloud's reaction to his question, but from the hesitance in his words the Turk could tell the other man was taken aback at the sudden topic change. "Yeah, uhh, Zack and I we were really—I mean, yeah... We were close."

"How so?"

Cloud stared at the redhead.

Reno just looked confused. Fuck. _Again_ with the impaired nervous system. What was his mouth even saying? His mind was definitely not endorsing this. Reno pushed himself off his arm and drained the rest of his glass in one gulp. "You don't have to answer that, yo. It's not my place to ask," Reno apologized hurriedly, cursing himself mentally at the sudden increase in morality in his bloodstream. He ignored it for the sake of better things to worry about. "That's not the point," He continued seriously, "It's this assignment I dragged you on. Zack Fair. Kir Facaz. He is—he's not—"

"We were close," Cloud repeated suddenly.

This time, Reno's mouth opened to say something back but nothing seemed to want to come out.

"Zack was... a mentor to me. A hero, a role-model, a teacher, a brother, a friend... and something more," Cloud found himself saying, telling Reno more about his relationship with his former best friend than he told anyone ever.

At these words, Reno almost felt a surge of jealousy. A feeling like somehow he had more of a connection to this man that used to be his enemy than he ever wanted to have with anyone else. And he wanted it to only belong to him. Before he could even begin to ask himself why he was doing it, Reno found himself on his feet, facing the other man, and placing his hands on either side of the blonde. "What am I to you?"

The blonde turned abruptly in his chair to face the other man. "What?"

"What..." Reno slid nearer, until his legs were almost straddling the blonde's waist and the proximity between them paper thin. "What am I... to you?"

Cloud just looked at the redhead, seemingly unfazed by his sudden actions. It wasn't until he found the other man leaning in so close that his half-lidded blue eyes nearly melted with his own and his breath, tainted with liquor, became almost intoxicating that he found himself saying under his breath, "_Closer_."

Reno didn't know whether it was a reply to his question or an urging from desire. Either way he fucked both of them. At this point he had held back long enough that his body was just going to do whatever the fuck it wanted no matter how much morality was beginning to course through him. He felt the various bottles of hard liquor begin to hit him headstrong and, by this time, even the most pressing topic of Zack Fair was banished from his mind. Suddenly, he didn't even want to hold himself back anymore.

The impact of the Turk pressing his lips against his and pushing him back against the counter left Cloud breathless. Evidently, his body hadn't forgotten the accidental incident before at the inn because just the initial contact with the other man was getting him half hard already. But the fact that each of the redhead's movements was clearly intentional only made the situation all the more like some sort of erotic fantasy, rather than reality.

"Reno, what're you...?" In an incredible feat of will power, Cloud regained some form of logic in his mind and opened his mouth to protest, but his efforts were put to naught as Reno took advantage of the action only to slip his tongue into the blonde's mouth. Cloud felt the rest of his words almost physically shoved back down his throat as he melted against the other man, rendering him almost powerless as Reno explored his mouth and touched him in ways he hadn't felt in years. He gripped the bar stool, letting out a poorly suppressed moan.

Reno finally broke away, chuckling huskily at the sound he had wrenched out of the usually stoic swordsman. "You were saying?"

"Fuck you," Cloud muttered irritatedly, punching the Turk in the arm with a glare, "Wipe that smug look off your face, Reno. What the hell are you doing?"

The Turk shrugged, sliding an arm around the blonde's waist to pull him close up against his own. Cloud gasped softly at the contact, the other man hard and hot even through the layers of their clothes, hard enough that it couldn't have happened from just the kiss. He had to have been aroused from the moment Cloud had walked in. From the surge of pleasure that pooled deep in Cloud's groin at the redhead's electrifying touch, it steadily became clear that it wasn't a fantasy. It wasn't a late-night mistake. It was happening here. And now.

Reno pressed his lips against the side of Cloud's neck and eased up against the blonde even closer. "Gonna tell me to stop, yo?" He whispered against the sensitive skin, sending electrifying jolts coursing through Cloud's body until all previous thoughts of putting a stop to this were banished from his thoughts.

"Fuck," Cloud cursed softly to himself before gripping the redhead by the ponytail and pulling him back to look him in the eyes. "You idiot, you think after all the shit you're doing to me right now that I _want_ you to stop?" He looked away at the ground, attempting to hide his infuriating blush under his bangs. "You think I ever did?"

Reno's eyes widened at the blonde words. At this point, he was fairly sure he was grinning like an idiot. "Seriously, yo?"

"Not saying it again." And before he knew it, Cloud had reached up to kiss the redhead himself. He felt the Turk chuckle to himself before deepening the kiss yet again, but this time with a slow thoroughness as he seemed to lick and suck every inch of the blonde's mouth – apparently taking Cloud's consent to mean that he could do whatever the hell he wanted as long as he wanted. Cloud was sure as hell not complaining about it.

And as off topic as it was, it suddenly occurred to him that he really did believe Reno when he said he cheated the Juno guys out of their money in poker, the way he clicked open the various buckles on Cloud's jacket with apparent ease - an odd contrast to the way Cloud's limbs were beginning to fail him, as embarrassing as that was.

Needless to say, it was getting increasingly difficult to ponder on spontaneous realizations, especially since Reno decided to abandon the blonde's mouth to ravage over his neck and chest instead.

"God, Reno, what the fuck are you—" His words were abruptly cut off as he struggled to suppress a heartfelt groan the moment the red-head worked his hand down Cloud's pants. What the fuck. He was actually liking this? Fucking _fuck_, Cloud thought, mumbling obscure curses as the other man slowly began to stroke properly. "Shit, Reno, that feels so… so…"

Reno looked up from licking the Cloud's chest to smirk at the heavy-lidded look of desire on the other man's face. "So what?"

Cloud shivered as his eyes connected with the redhead's, alike in not only the piercing blue but also the passion. He had to shut his eyes tight before the heat engulfed him and sent his hormones hurtling out of control, but even through his darkened eyelids he could still hear Reno's heavy breaths, labored from desire, and feel his hand sliding over his length, steadily becoming eased by the slick liquid being secreted by his hopeless arousal. It overwhelmed him.

"So... good... You idiot, _don't stop_—ah...!" Cloud jerked as Reno squeezed him teasingly. He leaned forward, burying his face in the redhead's shoulder and gripping the thick cloth of the Turk's blazer as he desperately tried to remind himself the importance of breathing.

Reno took this change in position as a chance to stroke through the blonde's hair with his free hand and bite his ear instead. "You're twitching a lot, yo," Reno whispered with a chuckle, "You like it when I touch you there?"

Cloud bit his lip against the redhead's shoulder, mentally cursing how the Turk might not be able to see his facial expression, but his body seemed to give everything away.

"Don't hold your voice back, Cloud," Reno whispered again, the breath of his words making the air clutch in Cloud's throat as it glided over his ear. "I didn't wait this long to touch you only to hear your stifled moans, yo." Reno did the same motion as before, rubbing his thumb over the the tip of Cloud's length repeatedly until the blonde couldn't have held back even if his life depended on it. If anyone was actually still in the bar – or awake – Cloud was sure he would have died from embarrassment anyway, as the breathy moans he tried so hard to suppress escaped with increasing volume and his hips were bucking into Reno's hand with each stroke.

"No, Reno," Cloud gasped into the Turk's shoulder, "No, you have to stop, I can't... I'm going to..."

Reno chuckled, moving his hand faster over Cloud's flush until the blonde's voice rose to a peak from being pushed so close to the edge. "_Do it_." Before the words could even register in Cloud's mind, the Turk leaned down to bite the blonde at the juncture of his neck and shoulder, and somehow the combination of pain and pleasure was the final straw. Cloud shuddered and with a sharp cry, he felt his body tense as he emptied himself to the last drop into the redhead's palm. He was so engulfed in ecstasy that he was only vaguely aware of the rapturous whimpers escaping his mouth and the dirty words of encouragement the Turk was murmuring into his ear.

Within moments the high was over, leaving Cloud hung limp across Reno's shoulders, oddly wrung out from just a hand job. Mustering any form of energy he had left, Cloud pushed himself off of the redhead just in time to see the Turk bring his hand to his lips, his tongue flicking out to taste the sticky globs smeared on his palm. "That was fast, yo. Been wanting me a little too much, huh?"

Cloud's eyes narrowed at the other man and he swung his arm back in irritation, preparing to knock the redhead a new one, but was promptly blocked by Reno's free hand. The Turk grinned devilishly, pinning the blonde's arms against the bar counter behind him as he reached down to tug the other man's pants further down until they were well past Cloud's upper leg. He leaned close with heavy breaths and whispered against the blonde's lips, "You don't think that just because I got you off this night is over, do you?" Reno kissed Cloud again; this time the Turk's movements soaked with suppressed desire as he ravaged the blonde's mouth, his tongue tangling with the other man's as he ground down on the man's thigh. "Fuck, I'm just getting started, yo."

"God, Reno, I..." Cloud let out a muffled moan into the redhead's mouth at the prospect. The feeling of the Turk's hot, hard length on his leg and his fingers probing at his hole, sticky from the remnants of their previous actions, was making his weeping arousal half-hard again already.

"Shit, I want you so bad Cloud... want you so fucking bad..." Reno murmured against the curve of Cloud's jawline. Cloud gulped, unsure of whether he should feel nervous or excited as he felt the other man's movements slow and his body press harder and heavier on his own.

"R-Reno, ah, I—Reno...? ..._What the fuck._"

* * *

His head hurt. Really, this wasn't even funny. His head seriously hurt like hell. What the _hell _was he doing last nigh-Oh yeah, he drank seven bottles of Rocket Town's finest. Yeah, that was funny. Yeah. Yeah… _So where was he now_? Reno slowly opened his eyes to a light beige color that was, coincidentally, the color of the ceilings of most inns in Gaia. They say beige is used as a common color for rooms because it was considered to be very soothing. Soothing his sexy ass. If that shitty color was at least one tenth as soothing as it should be, his head wouldn't still be hurting like fucking hell.

That being said, he was probably in Rocket Town's inn. Man, he'd better get his ass up before Cloud comes over to kick him out of the bed or something. Reno reached his arms out in front of his face and stretched, yawning loudly. Ahh, funny. He didn't get even so much as a hint of a tan from Costa Del Sol. His arms were still the pale color they were years ago. Not that the color of his skin really mattered to him. Skin. _Skin_. SKIN? Where was his shirt? Wait a minute… He grabbed the corner of his blanket and lifted it up, looking down. "AAARRRGGGHHHHHHHHHH!"

At the melodic sound of his voice, the other corner of the blanket next to Reno on the bed suddenly flew off revealing the head of none other than Cloud Strife himself. "Shut up, you idiot! I'm sleeping!" He shouted at the red-head, irritated.

Not decreasing his volume one bit, Reno pointed at the blonde and yelled, "WHY ARE WE IN THE SAME BED?" He sat straight up, covering his bare chest with the blanket.

Cloud blinked a couple of times and then propped his head on his elbow, looking at the Turk with narrowed eyes, "You seriously don't remember what happened last night?"

Last night… Last night? Reno's mind flashed back to the fateful moment when he accidentally fell on top of Cloud and then, uhh, licked him for some reason and then kissed him…? Oh dear God, he kissed Cloud Strife. Wait, he kissed _the_ Cloud Strife and he's not dead yet? Oh, sweet Shiva, Cloud couldn't possibly be actually homo-No, wait that was impossible. He must be already dead and he just hadn't noticed yet. Yeah. Yeah… Wait, what happened after the kissing? More? Less? WHY COULDN'T HE REMEMBER?

Ignoring the look of shock on the red-head's face, Cloud let his head fall back to his pillow again and sighed, "Okay, last night you were drunk and collapsed, so what could I do? Honestly, you couldn't stay at the bar all night, so I dragged you over to the inn and stuck you in this bed."

Still in utter shock and barely comprehending a word that his friend said, Reno just stared at Cloud, repeating his words over and over again in his head until he actually got what those simple sentences meant. "Then why are we in the same bed?" Reno asked, resuming the yelling-in-shock state he had a few seconds before.

"Okay, listen, Reno!" Cloud sat straight up in bed and said annoyed, "Hey, I don't know if you lost your wallet or hid it somewhere, but I couldn't find it! You know I have no money! Man, you're lucky I even _found _some bucks laying around the bar from other drunkies, or I wouldn't even be able to afford a one-bed room!"

Reno tilted his head a little, not gaping at the words the blonde uttered from his mouth, but rather at the words his bare chest was screaming in his face. There was really little to be said about it, but he could swear Cloud's chest had HOT SEX written all over it or something. Man, Cloud in a towel, Cloud in swim trunks, and now Cloud in bed with all his clothes off. That was so sexy… so unbelievably sexy… so amazingly, undeniably-Wait. Cloud wasn't wearing anything. And come to think of it… _neither was he_. "Wait, then why are all my clothes off? Why are all _your_ clothes off?"

"_What_?" Cloud lifted up the corner off his blanket to look under it, only to slam it back down over his body shouting, "HOLY SHIT!" He grabbed the nearest pillow and hurled it at Reno's face, slowly turning a shade of bright red, "You psychotic moron! Last night, we went to bed with all our clothes _on_! If anyone, _you're_ the one that stripped _me_! _You're_ the one who was drunk!"

Reno didn't even bother to dodge the pillow. He just let it whack him in the face and then fall onto his lap on the bed. Him and Cloud. Two guys. No clothes. One bed. He was probably _beyond_ the realms of deadness now. Or this was probably just another one of his psycho fantasies. Either way, the reality wasn't possible. Although, if it was, they didn't… do anything last night, right? No, what was he thinking? Nothing happened! He kissed him at the bar and that was it! Wait, _was it_?

Staring once again at the amazingly shocked look on the Turk's face, Cloud just groaned to himself. "I'm gonna go put some clothes on," He said as he grabbed a handful of the blanket to wrap around his waist and moved as if to get off the bed.

Reno grabbed his edge of the blanket, pulling the blonde back, "Hey, I'm not wearing anything either, yo!"

Cloud glared daggers, "I don't care! Cover yourself with a pillow or something!" And with those words and a rather hard tug, he yanked the blanket away and stormed into the bathroom.

"CLOUD, YOU SUCK!"

* * *

Reno stood leaning against the wall, by the front door of the inn. He had bolted out of the room, after putting on his clothes of course, to stand outside and wait for the blonde instead of sitting awkwardly on that bed. He just stood there watching people go on by minding their own business, with a dazed look on his face. In reality, he wasn't really watching them, or anything for that matter, at all. This was embarrassing. This was _really, really_ embarrassing. Him being the dirty drunk that he was _actually_ came on to that chocobo-head… and in the middle of a bar no less! What if someone saw him? Then everyone in the world would think he was gay and his life would be RUINED. Okay, exaggeration. Although, the few recollections he had of the feeling of Cloud against him weren't that bad. They actually felt _really _good. He could still almost feel the touch of Cloud's lips against his…

"Hey, Reno, let's get going," Cloud said as he stepped out of the inn doors and onto the street, interrupting Reno's thoughts. "Cid's probably finished by now."

"Ah, yeah, I'm coming, yo." Reno said in reply, pushing himself off the wall of the inn. Just forget about it. Just put it all behind him, and everything's just going to go back to normal with that blondie. He _was _going to play it all cool, but the moment he stepped out of the shadows of the building and into the bright sunlight, a sharp shock shot through his head, making him wince horribly. He grabbed his head with one hand and covered his eyes groaning in pain, "Agh, fuck, my head hurts, yo."

Cloud rolled his eyes to himself, still walking a ways ahead of the Turk, "Yeah, that _would_ be a common symptom of a hangover, Reno."

Reno peeked through a crack between his fingers and muttered, irritated, "Why are you so chill about this, yo?"

Cloud shrugged and glanced over his shoulder at the staggering red-head, "I didn't drink as much as you."

Reno's insides froze for a split second before they abruptly started up again. His arms dropped to his sides completely and he stopped dead in the middle of the road. "So, you weren't drunk?" He asked slowly.

Upon hearing the stop in Reno's footsteps, Cloud paused and turned around to look at him, "No, not really."

"And you remember everything?"

"…Yeah."

If this was some lame, overly dramatic soap opera, Reno would have fallen to his knees in the middle of the street, clutching his head and yelling curses to the sky. But it wasn't. And he didn't. He just clutched his head and yelled at Cloud instead. "YO, WHY DIDN'T YOU STOP ME THEN?" Though honestly he wasn't complaining. But if he really did steal the kid's virginity or something, or scarred him for life, at least he knew it wouldn't be entirely his fault. And that was a good thing somehow?

Cloud spun on his heel and continued walking in reply to Reno's words. He looked down at the road and said in a low voice, "You think I could?"

Luckily, the both of them soon easily had a chance for a change of subject because in a matter of no time at all, Reno and Cloud arrived at the door to Cid's house. Cloud raised a hand to knock on the door, but when his knuckle connected with the hard wood, the door slowly swung open. The door was ajar. "Huh, guess we didn't close it properly the last time we went in," Cloud said, looking at the open door oddly.

Reno pushed past the blonde and into the room, "Well, we'll just invite ourselves in then, yo! Hey, Cid Highwind! We're here for the plane, yo!" His call was quickly answered by a rather loud snore coming from some corner of the room. With raised eyebrows, Reno followed the sound to a chair at the kitchen table, seated by the rather unsightly sleeping figure of the Highwind's pilot.

Rolling his eyes, Cloud walked over to his friend and leaned high over his face. He smacked the pilot lightly across the face a couple of times, "Hey. Hey, Cid, wake up."

Cid shook his head, confused, "W-wha? What're you…?" His eyes connected with the blonde's and with one big swooping motion of his right arm, he grabbed Cloud's collar and nearly lifted him off the ground. "YOU AGAIN! What the hell are ya doin' in my house?"

Cloud kicked the side of the pilot's leg in annoyance, trying to get the man to let him go, "Cid-CID! It's me, you idiot!"

Cid squinted at the guy he actually had in his hands and then dropped him abruptly, "Oh sorry, Cloud. Still half-asleep there." He reached over to fix up his friend's collar and grinned apologetically, "You guys sure catch me at all the wrong times of the day!"

"I think you're just old…" Reno muttered from behind Cloud.

Cid reached behind the blonde and smacked Reno across the head, "I heard that, Turk!"

Cloud stopped Reno from punching the pilot's lights out and asked him, "Well, the night's over and we're here. You done with the plane, Cid?"

Cid gave them a crooked grin and motioned for the two to follow him out back, "Yeah, I fixed it, alright. It's ready for take off when you're ready." He stepped out into the clearing behind his house and ran off towards the storage room off to the side, "I got some stuff to give you guys, though. Wait here for a second."

Speechlessly, Reno and Cloud stopped right in front of the, er, plane that was going to take them across the ocean. Honestly, they didn't know exactly _what _Cid did last night, or if he even worked on the plane at all. It really looked exactly the same. But if the legendary airship pilot said the plane would fly, it would fly. Hearing running footsteps behind them, they then turned around to see Cid jostling towards them with rather large cardboard box in his hands.

"What the hell are you doing, yo?" Reno asked with raised eyebrows, as they watched the man drop the box on the floor and start rustling through the various items. If he was _still _going to make last minute adjustments to that piece of crap, he was _not _gonna take one step onto that plane.

"Presents, duh," Cid said absent-mindedly as he searched through the box. Finally, he straightened up and began to shove various things into Cloud's arms, "Okay, so here's an extra pair of goggles in case you're scared the wind resistance completely dries up your eyeballs, and bottle of water just 'cause it'll be a long ride over an ocean of salt water, and, oh yeah, most importantly, two sets of parachutes-"

Cloud took a step back to put a stop to his friend's ramble-ons, "Wait, Cid. What are you giving us all this crap for?" He gestured with his chin at all the items in his arms.

Cid waved him off with a careless hand, "Don't be stupid, Spiky. What are you talking about? You need this, remem-wait. Didn't I tell you?"

Reno and Cloud looked at each other and then back at the pilot. Tell them _what_? "Uhh, no."

"Oh. _Oh_." Cid laughed nervously, running a hand through his hair, "Well, I told you I fixed the plane and here it is, but there's a catch…" He glanced behind him at the aircraft and took a deep breath, " It's just, well, the thing is… this plane won't land."

"_What_?"

* * *

**well, isn't cid just full of surprises?**

**yeah, and about the smut: sorry, it took so many chapters to get to it! i don't really know what else to say. hope you enjoyed it?**

**reviewing would be nice. no. it'd be fucking awesome.**


	7. Steering

**another one of those random drabbles that i throw just 'cause i think it's funny. whether or not, it actually _is_ funny, i guess it's up to you, eh?**

**again, this is from before i rewrote the entire fic, so the characters might seem just a little more than a bit silly, but i love them anyway.**

"Hey, uh, Cloud?"

"What? I'm sleeping."

"Uh, would you happen to have any idea how to fly a plane?"

"…"

"Yo, Cloud, did you fall asleep again?"

"…"

"What's up?"

"I'm in _shock_. Can you repeat that?"

"Er, I don't know how to fly this plane?"

"THEN HOW DID WE GET FIFTY MILES INTO THE OCEAN?"

"I don't know! I just let it go wherever it looked like it wanted to go!"

"You have got to be kidding me…"

"Yeah, and then I finally decided to wake you up since I figured we might actually have to _steer_ the plane somewhere or something."

"Aren't you a helicopter pilot?"

"Helicopters and planes are completely different, yo."

"Well, they both fly…"

"What was that?"

"Never mind… So, let's figure this out. What does… this button do-wait a minute, what does this even _say_?"

"Yeah, I know, right? It's in a completely different language!"

"Now I _really _have no idea what to do…"

"Well, we _could_ just press random buttons, yo. Like this, this, this, this, this, and this and-"

"Wait, don't press that-! Holy shit, you pressed it…"

"What was it?"

"The big, red button. You NEVER press the big, red button, Reno!"

"Why no-WHOOOOAAAAA!"

"RENO, I HATE YOUUUU!"

* * *

**of course, as you all know, reno actually isn't this incompetent. but where would the comic relief come from if he didn't at least act a bit moronic sometimes? :)**

**moral of the story: never press the big, red button.**

**weiver.**


	8. Whisper

**at last, the long awaited chapter in which...! hell, i'll just let you guys find out yourselves.**

Cid scratched the back of his head guiltily. No doubt something was up that was going to make this extremely difficult journey much harder than it already was. He sighed and replied with an uneasy grin on his face, "Well, not that it _won't_ land per se…"

Reno folded his arms, rolling his eyes. "Just spit it out, Highwind," He said shortly. It couldn't get worse. Kir Facaz was Zack Fair. He probably just screwed his only friend on this journey last night. And he had one of the worst hangovers in… about two months. Yeah, it couldn't get any worse.

Cloud searched through his mind for the worst possible situation that Cid could give them since all he got in return was silence anyway. "Is the plane going to blow up?" He blurted out randomly. Well, not very realistic, but hey, it was Cid.

"BINGO, SHORT STUFF!" Cid yelled ecstatically. "Er, I mean," He cleared his throat, "Yes, that's correct. Okay, I might as well just tell you guys. Bluntly put? I screwed up. All my planes are in the shithole so the only one I could dig up was this piece of crap. Problem is… well, the engine's the fucking problem."

Okay, he was just going to keep thinking to himself that it wasn't going to get worse. Reno almost exploded from the suspense of the whole moronic situation. "What?" He said in an attempted steady voice.

"It's a bomb."

"_WHAT_?" It just got worse. Reno clutched his head, nearly having a seizure, "FUCKIN-WHAT? A bomb. A BOMB? What kind of plane has a fucking bomb for an engine?"

Cid gave a guilty smile looking from side to side, anywhere but the furious Turk's face, "Er, mine?"

Reno yelled incomprehensible curses in reply.

"Calm down, Reno," Cloud said rolling his eyes, unusually calm about the whole dilemma.

"CALM? It's a fucking bomb! How am I supposed to be calm? ARGHHH!"

Cloud sighed and continued, now turning away from the man he now had absolutely no acquaintance with, "Okay, Cid. It's a bomb, but I don't care because I need to get across this ocean. So, tell me what we got to do."

Cid patted his long-time friend on the back heartily, "Never straying from your real goal, Blondie. You haven't changed." He bent down and picked up the cardboard box of random objects, which Cloud dropped spontaneously somewhere in the middle of the entire conversation, and handed it to Cloud once again, "Near the grasslands surrounding Wutai, you're going to have to use these parachutes and jump off the plane before it so much as touches land again. I know what you guys are thinking. Why the fuck is it a bomb? WELL, those goddamn Shinra bastards wouldn't get me proper engines for my damn planes so I had to take some from war zone scrap yards and tweak them."

Evidently recovered, Reno decided to join in to the conversation and muttered cynically, "They had fucking engine bombs during the last war…?"

Cid shrugged, leading the pair towards the lethal plane. "Well, they were decoy planes, equipped with artificial intelligence and engines that would blow up on impact. It's not very common, but not exactly unheard of either." He kicked down the ladder leading up to the cockpit. "Perfect for surveillance of enemy territory. Or just for the fun of blowing things up," He grinned and gestured towards the circular hatch, "Well, get the hell in there, guys!"

Cloud looked at the plane suspiciously. Now that he knew what it really was, he started noticing the obvious signs of the decoy plane. War propaganda printed all over the sides, not to mention all the warning labels that just _riddled_ the hatch over the engine. This was getting steadily more and more ridiculous. "Go ahead, Reno," He nudged the red-head closer to the plane, completely reluctant to get on.

"Yeah, sure. Ahead to my _death_…" Reno muttered as he warily climbed into the cockpit, closely followed by the blonde. He edged forward and sat his rear down on the pilot's seat scrutinizing the controls. He knew a plane's controls were obviously different from a helicopter's, but he didn't even know what the hell these were! Not only was everything in the wrong place, it was a completely different language! Just goes to show the difference between humans and A.I…. _none_. This was just pure stupidity. With raised eyebrows, he decided to just flick on a couple of switches that looked most like they were going to do something that would actually get the plane to start working. Evidently he failed because his next few words were, "What the fuck? This plane doesn't even start!"

"That's because you're doing it wrong, dumbass!" Cid yelled from the ground. He edged around the backside of the plane to the front by the engine. "You should have told me you guys were all set, then I'd start it from the outside!"

"Your fault for not mentioning that to us earlier," Reno grumbled in his seat, cursing. But his bad-mouthing was suddenly interrupted by the loud clang of what sounded like Cid's foot against the hard metal of the plane. What in the world?

"Hey! Hey, Cid!" Cloud leaned out of the cockpit to peer at the underside of the plane at exactly what the hell the former pilot was doing. His hands grabbed the edge of the plane so he hung suspended upside-down against the side. He raised his eyebrows at the violent actions of his former friend, who seemed be abusing the thing more than getting it to work. "Uh, what are you doing?"

"Dammit, stupid plane!" Cid merely gave the plane one last kick before taking out the huge wrench he had in his back pocket. "Get back into the plane, short stuff!" He yelled, raising the wrench high over his head, "I swear to Shiva's holy ass, this thing is gonna blow any second!"

"Oh shit!" Cloud swung himself over the edge of the plane back into the cockpit, nearly colliding with Reno along the way. Not a second after he shoved the safety belt into its latch and slammed the glass cover down over the cockpit, he heard the loud clang of the wrench followed by the sudden lurch of the plane shooting forward faster than even Cid's old rocket.

Without the warning to buckle up to his seat, Reno could only hold on for dear life. "FUCKING SHIIITTTTT!" He hollered, nearly flying off the pilot seat entirely from the force of the plane's propulsion. He attempts to help Gaea from certain destruction and this is what he gets, huh? _This_ is what he gets? Fucking flying towards who knows where! This is exactly why Turks never work for the good of mankind. Or for Cloud, but he was just an exception and a rare one at that. Wait, _for Cloud_? For mankind! …Mankind? Yeah. Yeah, that was right. Wait, what?

As Cid slid his wrench back into his pocket, safely on the ground. He barely had even a millisecond to look up before the plane was already flying out of sight. The pilot just folded his arms and sighed, looking up into the deep blue sky at the tiny speck that was once his beloved plane, "Have a great trip, guys!"

* * *

"Okay, I stuck it on auto-pilot," Reno unbuckled his belt and started crawling over the pilot's seat to the back where the blonde lay dozing off, "Hey, Cloud!" He didn't even flinch, despite the volume at which Reno yelled his name. The red-head's heart involuntarily skipped a beat as his hand inched forward to… to do what? To wake him up right? So why was his hand starting to caressing the soft skin of the blonde's cheek instead? Argh, stupid body! He should be focusing on saving the world, not his non-existent love life! His hand flinched and ended up smacking Cloud over the side of the head, "Wake up, chocobo-head! We're almost there, yo."

"OW!" Cloud jerked to a sitting position with a hand over his smarting head, "That was so uncalled for!"

Reno rolled his eyes, "Well, you wouldn't wake up, so what else would I do?"

Wouldn't wake up? Cloud grimaced as a guilty feeling enveloped his body and settled in his stomach. No wonder he couldn't hear the Turk, he was dreaming about Zack again. For some weird reason, he was actually getting more and more of those dreams. The closer he got to the Wutai Continent, the more vivid those dreams got. More vivid than ever… He shook his head fiercely and crawled over to the pilot's seat. "You go ahead and get those parachutes ready, Reno. It's too crowded back here," He mumbled, face red. Too crowded as in, not wanting Reno to burn his ass off from the evident heat radiating from his body. How embarrassing.

"Uhh, yeah sure," Reno looked oddly at the blonde. What was his problem? He shrugged it off and grabbed the two packs of parachutes from the box of junk. "We didn't even _use_ half of this crap that pilot gave us. What a waste of the time he spent organizing this crap. Waste of stuff too, since it's going to end up blowing up anyway," The red-haired Turk muttered as he pulled the two packs apart from each other. As he tweaked the parachutes to a working condition from the rough flight over the ocean, he noticed as small tear in one of the chute bags. He held it up to his face, scrutinizing it, "Hey, Cloud, I think we have a defect here-"

"I'll take that, thanks," Cloud ripped it out of his grasp and strapped it to his back, looking away from the red-head, "Looks fine to me."

Reno swung the one left in his hand onto his back and buckled it in as well, "If you say so, yo." He looked even more bizarrely at the blonde. He was acting _completely _out of character today. Whatever that meant. Could Cloud actually get anymore anti-social than he usually was? The Turk tightened the belts on the parachute pack and slowly raised the glass roof of the cockpit, tensing himself from the sudden change in air pressure and strong winds. With one hand holding tight to the top edge of the plane and a leg on the bottom edge bracing himself, he leaned over the edge and bent down, ready to leap out, "Okay, let's get out of here!" His fingers let go and-!

"WAIT, DUMBASS!" Cloud lunged out and grabbed the red-head around the waist in mid-air before he fell, and they landed in a heap on the floor. The blonde slowly let go of Reno panting, "Do you even know where we're supposed to jump? What if you dive down and land in the middle of nowhere? Kir Facaz would kill us before we even get to Wutai for shelter!"

Reno smacked the back of his palm in realization, "Oh yeah, that's right. But wait, _where _are we supposed to jump? This stupid plane doesn't exactly have any radar or anything." He paused for a moment in realization. "WOW, THIS IS A SHITTY PLANE."

He just noticed? Cloud shrugged and peered over the edge of the plane at the land growing steadily closer to them. "Hell if I know," He said loudly over the wind, "Maybe right when we see Wutai?"

"Well, maybe… before we crash into that GIGANTIC IN COMING MOUNTAIN! JUMP!" Reno grabbed Cloud by the collar and dived out of the decoy plane just moments before it collided into the mountain with a brilliant explosion that bloodied the dark, overhanging clouds with a fiery, red light. They plummeted down to earth, the heat of the explosion just licking the skin exposed on his face and hands. But despite the obvious flaming ball of fire on the mountain and the evident thousand feet drop to the ground, all Reno's mind could think about was the fact that the PLANE WAS ACTUALLY A FUCKING BOMB. Hey, Cid _sounded_ like he was serious and all, but Reno didn't actually believe him when he said the plane would explode and completely disintegrate into the air in flames back on the safe and secure ground of Rocket Town. Evidently, it was, and it did.

This was fucking insane. Reno spread out his arms and legs to slow his fall somewhat because who _would_ want the adrenaline from skydiving to end any sooner? He looked through his goggles at the blonde some meters below him, his ridiculously huge sword slung vertically on his back under his chute and his gear piled on his slender body. No wonder he fell faster than Reno. With all that armor and shit, he probably weighed roughly the size of a baby killer whale. Okay, exaggeration.

"Ah, shit!" The red-haired Turk was so focused on Cloud's weight that he completely forgot to check the meter around his wrist for the minimum height for his parachute. "Dammit, it's already in the red zone," Reno muttered, "Cloud! You're way past red! Hey! CLOUD!" He yelled at the blonde still meters below him. Of course, he couldn't hear him from his distance through the wind. What the hell was he doing? Did he pass out or something? Reno's hand hovered over his own tag as he shouted through the wind again, "Cloud! Idiot chocobo! Pull your fucking tag!"

No recognition.

"CLOUD!"

Still falling.

"PULL YOUR CHUTE!" Reno shook his head furiously, "What are you trying to do, kill yourself?" Then at those words, he froze in the air, thinking back to the moments before in the plane.

"_Hey, Cloud, I think we have a defect here_-"

"_I'll take that, thanks. Looks fine to me_."

"_If you say so, yo_."

He took the defect parachute… that idiot. Dammit! Reno ripped his hand away from his tag and dove down for the blonde, he had no time to lose. "Fucking… is this a suicide wish?"

* * *

The ground was growing steadily closer. And Cloud was falling hundreds of miles per hour towards it. The hard earth. And Cloud's (in contrast) extremely fragile body. Both were going to connect within minutes. Alright then.

Surprisingly enough, Cloud wasn't scared. Not at all. I mean, seriously, he's felt worse. Okay, that was a lie. Nothing's exactly worse than getting flattened like a pancake. But at least it was getting flattened like a pancake _on_ a journey to save the world, uhh, all over again. What was this, his destiny or something? He seemed to just magnetically attract all worldly disasters everywhere.

But at least he was with Reno. He'd die with Reno. And once he died… He'd finally see Zack again.

Cloud broke through another layer of clouds and braced himself. This was it. This was…

Then suddenly a hand grabbed his shoulder and unceremoniously flipped him over in the air to see- "RENO! THE HELL?"

The red-head swung his other arm around and grabbed Cloud's other shoulder. "What the hell were you thinking, blondie? HUH?" He yelled over the deafening wind, "What the fuck is going through that screwed up mind of yours, you idiot? ARE YOU TRYING TO COMMIT SUICIDE HERE?"

Commit suicide? So that's what he thought. Figures… Cloud glared at the Turk through his goggles. "How ironic, you're calling _me_ an idiot? You didn't pull the tag either, screwed up person!" He paused and then yelled again, "AND I'M NOT COMMITTING SUICIDE!"

"Yeah, says the moron who took the defect parachute, yo!"

"Well, what was I supposed to do, huh?"

"You could've tried NOT BEING A MORON!"

If Cloud wasn't gripping onto Reno's jacket so tightly, he would've knocked the wind out of this ungrateful jerk. "Fuck you, Reno! Now thanks to you, we're _both_ gonna die!"

"Shit!" Reno yelled to himself in realization. If they were in the red those few minutes ago, it was nothing compared to now. Argh, whatever! The Turk wrapped his arm around the blonde's waist, pulling him closer and yanked his tag down as hard as he could.

Cloud saw the parachute barely open above him before then seeing the green of the ground and then feeling a huge "OOF!" The impact felt bone-breaking, but that wasn't all. Once they seemed to connect with the extremely _solid_ ground, the blow was accompanied by several others before the two slowed to a halt panting at still with the parachute wrapped around them like a straightjacket.

Or was it really the parachute? 'Cause it was really white… And the last time Reno had a meeting with death, white meant, er, not living anymore. And he felt strangely… good lying there, wherever he was. He felt warm. And felt no pain. Man, whatever this was, it felt good. _Damn good_… _Damn_-"Owww."

The "damn good thing" groaned and moved an inch on top of the red head. Oh duh, it was Cloud, who else? But that slight movement of the blonde eased much of the pressure off of his chest, finally letting the full extent of the pain rip the breath right out of his lungs. "Ow, shit! Shit, shit, shit, shit! Damn, Cloud. I know you're a stick and all, but right now that weight is freakin' killing me, owwww. Get off, yo! Get off, get off, get off!" Reno yelled, not caring whether he sounded like a whiny little girl or not.

"Agh, sorry!" Cloud said quickly, trying push himself off of the red head. Fail. Because the parachute was so tightly wound around them two, Cloud was unfortunately stuck in his… odd position. Or was it fortunate? His position being him straddling the Turk around the groin with his chest pressed against the other's. How awkward. And this whole turning red thing was pissing him off. "Ah, don't-This is weird, sorry." Cloud stuttered out, "Wait, I'll try and get us out. Er, sorry. Wait, don't move, sorry. This is awkward…" Why was he saying sorry again?

"Uh, yeah, tell me about it, yo," Reno muttered, noticing the embarrassing position only moments before as well. Stay for about a minute longer and the Turk was going to get fucking aroused or something. Yeah, if the position itself wasn't mortifying enough, just wait. Just fucking wait… Seriously.

"Here, I got it." With great difficulty, Cloud reached behind his back, grabbed his sword, and sliced an opening behind him in the parachute. "Finally, some air," Cloud groaned as he immediately jumped off the red head, brushing the dust off his clothes. He reached out a hand to pull Reno up, but the Turk just smacked his hand away.

"Dammit, Cloud! What the hell was that back there?" Reno yelled at the blonde again. Yes, again. Whatever the chocobo-head did up there was an act of total stupidity! Or nobility… Stupid nobility!

Cloud glared at Reno for refusing his helping hand and then muttered irritated, "Okay, fine. It was a stupid move. But it wasn't like I was going to die or anything. I'd walk away with a few broken bones, no big deal." Yeah, as if pancake status wasn't death. But Reno didn't need to know that.

Little did Cloud know, Reno knew it _very_ well. And was dead pissed about it. "NO BIG DEAL? You would've fucking died, yo!"

"Well, it was for you, okay?" Cloud found himself yelling back. Uh oh. Didn't mean to say that.

Reno paused in all his anger and stared up at the blonde. "Wait… what?"

"Er," Cloud stuttered. Well, might as well finish his bold statement. "Well, I… You know, you know more about the mission than me and, well, since there was a defect parachute, I thought that, well, it'd be better if I took it so you would walk away unscathed and could still carry out the mission since it was really important and all. And… yeah. I was just, I mean, I just… didn't want you to get hurt." He said quickly and quietly. This was fucking embarrassing. It sounded so much cooler in his head.

Reno just looked wide-eyed at Cloud with a look of surprise plastered on his face. "What, really?" He asked hopefully. Or, er, kind of hopefully? Hopeful for what…

Cloud blushed. "I meant, I didn't want you to fall flat on the ground with that weak body of yours! I'm hella buff so I'd probably walk off after the impact, but you're just a limp fat ass! You'd die before you knew you touched the ground!" He yelled red in the face, trying to cover up for all evidence that he would ever be even remotely worried about the Turk.

"Oh my God, you jerk! You did not just say that…"

"Er, well-Well, I just did! What now?"

Reno put his hands on the ground behind him, ready to pounce at the blonde. "I'm gonna beat your blonde butt right back to Edge, that's what I'm gonna do, yo!" Empty threat. Unfortunately, Reno was completely unable to _get_ up.

Cloud raised his eyebrows at the statement with no action. "Yeah, ouch that beating really hurt, Reno," He said sarcastically.

"Shut up! My bones are all broken because of you!" Reno yelled.

Cloud winced at those words. Did he really…? "Wait a minute," The blonde bent down next to the Turk and ripped off the red-head's shirt.

"W-Whoa, what're you doin', yo?" Reno jerked himself out of Cloud's hands, blushing.

Cloud just rolled his eyes and grabbed Reno's arm, spinning him around so he was facing away from the blonde, "Stop resisting, let me see." But he almost regretted that statement altogether. Once he saw the injuries taken to Reno's back, he grimaced and nearly had to hold back a gasp. Reno's entire upper back was tainted a disgusting shade of black and purple, and more than one rib was poking out at his skin like it was threatening to break through. The Turk was lucky to get away from such a fall just with injuries like these. But… Reno actually _protected_ him?

"Done looking?" Reno grumbled over his shoulder.

"Ah, yeah," Cloud said quickly, startled out of his thoughts, "Here, have your shirt back. I'm taking you to Wutai." He threw the white shirt and black jacket at the red-head and started to pull him up from the pile of parachute.

Reno grabbed his shirt and started slipping it on. "Yeah, yeah, alright. Just wait a second while I get this stupid shirt on-Wait, what? Wutai?" He suddenly said as Cloud's words sank in. "No, man. We gotta get Kir Facaz, yo! The faster the better!" He wanted to get out of here as quickly as possible. Though the main reason was because he wanted to kill Kir Facaz himself before Cloud found out it was Zack Fair. Blondie had enough riding on his shoulders.

Cloud sighed and continued dragging Reno off the ground, "Yeah, let's see you fight the world's most dangerous human weapon with all your broken bones. You gotta rest up first. And fast." He slung Reno's arm around his shoulder and slid an arm around his waist. "I'm surprised Kir Facaz didn't find us already. We're pretty vunerable out here."

"Y-yeah, that's what I meant! We gotta, you know, get over to the lab and find Kir Facaz and kill him before he gets us, yo! Or get to Wutai really fast before he finds us!" Reno paused in all his logical reasoning. The word logical was at odds with the truth, since what he just said didn't make sense at all.

Reno was being an idiot again about this whole Kir Facaz thing. What's new? Cloud just sighed again and continued walking, "Yeah, yeah, why don't you just shut up and let me drag you to Wutai, alright? I bet you have brain damage along with your broken ribs…"

"Hey, ungrateful kid! I saved you back there!"

"Just shut up and move, cripple."

* * *

If a exploding plane wasn't extraordinary enough, the two injured men were met with another surprise the moment they stepped through the gates of Wutai. That surprise also being accompanied by black hair, a high-pitched voice, and, er, shortness?

"Whoa, what the hell are you guys doing at Wutai?" Yuffie yelled loudly, pointing at Cloud and Reno with her jaw-dropped.

"Well, it's kind of complicated-" Cloud started to say, but was immediately interrupted by a loud "YOU!" as Reno pointed at the Oriental ninja and then another "YOU!" as Yuffie pointed right back.

Reno pushed himself off of Cloud and shouted again, "YOU! You're that annoying short Asian kid!"

"YOU'RE that crazy, cynical Turkey with the ultra bad hair-do!" Yuffie glared right back.

"Hey! What was that?" They yelled simultaneously.

Cloud raised his eyebrows and looked from one angry person to another, "What, you two know each other?"

"_Knowing_ doesn't even begin to cover the half of it," Reno muttered through gritted teeth.

Yuffie just sneered at the red-haired Turk, "Yeah, it was nice doing business with you, I have to say. I made tons of money that day. And you were the easiest client I ever stole from _hands down_!"

"WHY YOU LITTLE-!" Reno charged at the girl, ripping out his Electro-Mag Rod all in one go. He slashed down at the ninja, but was only deflected by Yuffie's quick moves to grab her signature unusually large shurinken. "I'll get you for all that materia you stole from me… Those were rare, kid. Plus, they cost me a fucking hundred thousand gil!"

"Well, all the better for me, huh? And I got a hundred thousand G in profit too! Good deal, wouldn't you say?" She stuck her tongue out at the Turk, only annoying him even more.

"You annoying little brat!"

Cloud watched the scene with increasing irritation. He originally thought it was a lifetime enemy thing or something, but it was just a little quarrel over expensive materia. Figures. He let out a sigh and then yelled at Reno, who was just about to let out a spell on the obnoxious ninja, "Hey, cut it out, you guys! And Reno, aren't you injured?"

Reno stopped mid-spell and dropped his EMR in realization, "AGH! FUCKIN-DAMMIT, IT HURTTTSS!"

"Stupid…"

* * *

"Here, lay the idiot red-head on the futon," Yuffie called to Cloud from across the room in her house. Or rather, the empty house she was "borrowing" for the night. It wasn't like she didn't own a freakin' mansion already, life was just more fun this way.

"Don't need to _lay_ me down, yo," Reno groaned as he pulled himself out of Cloud's arms and collapsed on the futon, "I'm not a fucking princess."

"Psh, if you say so, girly man," Yuffie called out nonchalantly.

"What was that?"

"Just go to sleep, Reno," Cloud pushed the half-up Reno back onto the bed, "You better get some rest tonight. We're probably leaving early morning tomorrow."

"Yeah, you think I can calm down after all that adrenaline from that fucking parachute stunt?" Reno grumbled, swinging his arm over his head to cover his eyes, "Still your fault by the way."

Cloud rolled his eyes, "Alright, alright, whatever helps you sleep at night." He looked over at Yuffie, "Do you have any sedative so he could get some shut eye?"

"Yeah, probably," The ninja snapped open a pouch on her waist and rummaged through the contents for a minute before pulling out a little velvet bag, "Yup! Got it!" She took out a small pill and flipped in the air like a coin right into Reno's open mouth. "Wait here, you two. I'm going to go out and get some bandages for the stupid Turk over there." And with that, she left the room.

"Left the room" meaning Cloud and Reno were now all alone. "Damn, this sedative works fast," Reno heard himself mumbling. He shifted his arm for a split second and in that moment he looked at the blonde just in time to catch the reddened look on his face. Oh shit. What a thing to say in this situation. But damn was that medicine strong. Wait. He should stop thinking about it before he did something stupid… AGAIN. Last thing he wanted was to have a repeat of the bar incident. Lies, it was the first thing he wanted…

Cloud looked away from Reno's resting body, but not before he thought he caught the red-head's eye for a second. My God, that Turk was such an idiot. Maybe he should've just given the defect parachute to the guy and just let him fend for himself. Actually, that would've been bad since Cloud didn't exactly know shit about the details of the mission. Well, at least that was the reason he told Reno… Why _did_ he take the defect anyway? Was it really to save that idiot of a Turk? Was it really because he was willing to risk his life for another guy? Was it because he loved him?

Fuck, what was he thinking? Cloud distracted himself by looking back to Reno and asking quickly, "Hey, Reno, how you feeling now? You asleep-" Bad idea.

Reno slid his arm off his eyes and looked at the blonde with a dazed look in his eyes, "Cloud."

Shit. The gaze was strangely erotic. "W-what?" Cloud ended up stuttering out.

"I don't know why, but I really want to kiss you again."

_WHAT_? Okay, Reno was seriously on drugs. What the fuck did that Yuffie give him? Mental note. Never trust ninjas with pills… This Turk was fucking high. For all he knew this could be ecstasy or something. Sedative, his ass… "Wait, what? You're not serious are you?" Cloud laughed nervously, his body growing hot.

Reno reached up and grabbed the blonde by the back of the neck, "Why don't _you_ tell me whether I'm serious or not." And with those words, he leaned up slightly and pressed his warm lips on the blonde's.

Shocked or not. High or not. Hot as hell or not. Cloud found himself once again kissing the Turk back. Whether or not it was a fucking coincidence that Reno ended up doing these things to him while he was drunk or on drugs, it didn't matter at this moment. Right now Cloud _wanted_ to kiss Reno back. He _wanted_ the red-head's tongue in his mouth touching him like nothing before. Strangely, the idea of a continuation of the incident at the bar didn't sound like such a bad idea. At this moment, no Zack flashed in his mind. Only Reno. Reno's touch, his hands roaming his back and under his shirt, fingering the buckle of his pants-

"Hey, guys, I got the bandages! Coming in!" Yuffie slid open the door and threw the bag of bandages on the floor in front of her. "So, you guys mind finally telling me what the hell you're doing her-What are you doing over there, Cloud?"

In the short timespan of one millisecond, Cloud managed to push Reno off of him, back onto the futon where he promptly passed out, and jump from his place by the bed to the farthest corner of the room. It was pretty impressive, really. "Er, nothing!" Cloud said quickly, "I was just, er, trying to get some sleep over here in the corner." Lame excuse.

Yuffie raised an eyebrow, "In a corner? Oookay, glad to see you're an anti-social freak like usual, Cloud."

"Er, yeah."

Brushing the suspicion off, the petite ninja pranced over to the blonde side and repeated her question, "So, you gonna tell me what you're doing here?"

Finally, with a distraction from his repeated incident with Reno and the moment to talk to Yuffie in private, Cloud explained the whole Kir Facaz situation in detail. Well, the details he knew at least.

The moment he ended and looked up at the ninja, she had a rather thoughtful look on her face. "Hmm, wait, wait," Yuffie said slowly, "Now that you mention it, some villagers were talking of a rumored abandoned lab around the east side of the mountains over by the temple. Some farmer saw it a couple of months back, but was killed before he could make it back to Wutai. Another villager was fortunate enough to find out what happened to him in his last breath though. You think that's the place you're looking for?"

Cloud nodded gratefully, "Yeah, that has to be the place. Thanks, Yuffie." He heaved a long sigh and leaned back against the wall, "Well, we'll probably leave early tomorrow morning so us being here won't bother the other villagers. It's going to be a long night."

Yuffie laughed despite herself, "Saving the world again, huh Cloud? You always get into these situations somehow."

"Yeah, kind of pisses me off."

"You're destined to save this world one more time, Cloud, and you know it," Yuffie laughed again, "Well then, I have a present for you, Cloud." She reached for the bag she threw into the room minutes before and took out a shining pouch of…

"Materia…" Cloud muttered as he opened the bag and fingered the shimmering magic balls lightly, "A bit of a weird moment here, you _giving_ me materia."

Yuffie smacked him across the arm pouting, "Hey! I've been out of that business for a while now! You know we're world-saving buddies and stuff!" She pointed a thumb over her shoulder at the sleeping figure of Reno and continued, "On another note, just remember to throw some at that idiot too. He's going to need some in his EMR if he wants to defeat a calamity. Oh, speaking of Reno!" She narrowed her eyes at Cloud suspiciously, "Why are you working with him anyway?"

"What?"

"Why are you working with a Turk? You two are, like, sworn enemies. What's going on here?"

"Er," Cloud looked away, "I, uhh…"

Yuffie scrutinized her friend's expression as he tried to search for the words to explain and then smirked understandingly, "Ohhh, you and Reno are, ohhhh, well, why didn't you say earlier, dummy?" She smacked him on the arm again, "I mean, I never really took you for the, you know, _guy_ kind of guy, but can't judge a book by it's cover, eh? Congrats, Cloud! I mean, ditching Tifa is a pretty bad move in my opinion, but you know, a guy's gotta do what a guy's gotta do!"

Cloud turned a brilliant red and said defensively, "WHAT, NO! I'm not together with Reno! And what do you know about guys?"

"Hey, don't gotta be all in denial about it, Cloud. I get it. _I get it_," Yuffie shrugged understandingly with a smug look on her face.

"What? You've got it all wrong! I don't like Reno!"

"Alright, alright, you don't like Reno," Yuffie gave in, rolling her eyes, "I'll your word for it. Methinks he doth protest too much…" She added under her breath grinning.

"_What was that_?"

Yuffie coughed, "Nothiing, nothing." But then her face turned into a sincere grin. "But all jokes aside, Cloud. I _know_ how you look at him. Reno, I mean."

"What are you talking about?" Cloud muttered, still red in the face. He didn't like Reno. It was impossible.

Yuffie sighed in an obnoxiously all-knowing manner, "Well, you know. I used to like you, you know? Like when we went on that date at the Golden Saucer, and you act differently with Reno. I mean, _I _would know. I went on a date with you! Not to mention saved the world together too."

Cloud looked at her aghast, "Are you saying I actually like him?" This couldn't be happening. No. Way. And how does he act differently around Reno anyway? He blushed a lot more, sure, but… Wait, that could be it…

"I'm saying you guys could work out, really," Yuffie grinned even broader.

"You've got to be kidding me…"

"No, really, I'm serious!"

"Well… maaaybe-What the hell?" Cloud looked around the room, more specifically the completely pitch dark room. Somehow all the lights went out.

Yuffie jumped up and pulled out her giant shurinken, "Who's there?"

But no sooner than she yelled her battle cry did the deafening sound of sword against wood ring out in the room. The wall Cloud was leaning against was suddenly slashed apart littering the ground with wood splinters. Cloud jumped up into a fighting stance against the intruder, but then froze at the sight of silhouette of the attacker against the dim light from the outside.

He had broad shoulders and long gangly arms and legs, muscular yet rather thin. His hair stuck out at all angles long and untamed, but strangely familiar. The sword in his hands was huge, way bigger than the blade a man of his size should be wielding. Cloud felt like his heart was beating so fast it was going to rip out from his chest. This couldn't be. Not now. He couldn't see the man's face, but he knew exactly who he was. Kir Facaz… No, no, it was-The word came out in barely a whisper.

"Zack…"

* * *

_**finally**_**, cloud finds out kir facaz is zack fair. it really is a pity reno didn't get to break it to cloud before he found out on his own. then again, life's tough for reno; getting drunk, getting laid, getting broken and bruised, getting drugged. guess the guy just didn't have the chance to.**

**then again, if he did get the chance, where's the fun in that?**

**my updates are getting farther and farther apart, forgive me! ...review anyway?**


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